


Welcome to the Family

by FlightOfTheSilverbird



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Glass (2019), Split (2016)
Genre: Biohazard | Resident Evil References, Bugs & Insects, Burns, Cannibalism, Decapitation, Dismemberment, Emetophobia, Fire, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 39,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23172190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlightOfTheSilverbird/pseuds/FlightOfTheSilverbird
Summary: It's been three years since Kevin disappeared on a transport assignment for the zoo. However, when Casey receives an e-mail from him requesting to be picked up from a farm in Louisiana, she finds herself and her boyfriend plunged into a night of mortal terror filled with betrayal and revelation.A Resident Evil 7: Biohazard AU
Relationships: Casey Cooke/Kevin Wendell Crumb, Dennis/Patricia (Split)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of impending societal collapse at the hands of coronavirus, have some good ol' violence and gore!

_ Why the hell am I doing this? It's clearly a scam,  _ Casey thought to herself as she chugged along the interstate in her beat-up station wagon.  _ He's probably dead, why would he show up now? _

_ You're doing this because he was your shoulder to cry on throughout your uncle's trial,  _ her conscience replied.  _ You're doing this because you fell in love with him, he's supported you since that day you met on the senior trip to the zoo, you discussed a long-term future with him, and damned if you won't try to bring him back. _

_ There's no turning back now, I suppose,  _ Casey conceded, and she flipped the right-turn indicator for her exit. As a precaution, though, she took out her cellphone and hit the second speed dial option. A low, friendly voice asked confusedly, "Hello?"

"Hey Marcia. It's Casey."

"Hey girl, you alright? You didn't show up to Claire's party the other night. We were talking about it during psych and you seemed really thrilled about going!"

"Yeah, no, I'm fine...it's Kevin. I don't think he's dead."

Marcia's voice jumped an octave. "Wait, they actually found him? How? What happened?"

Casey sighed. "I...I don't know how...but he's back somehow. Maybe it's a prank, he wanted me to come pick him up and bring him back to Philadelphia."

"Well, where is he?"

"Dulvey. In Lousiana."

Marcia was stunned. "Hon, that's really far! Besides, it's been three years!"

"I know, I know!" Casey exclaimed, her voice shaky with nervousness. "But...what if it is him? I just...I need to find out what happened. The zoo's been covering up the details of his caretaker assignment since he disappeared, and I need some answers. Best if it comes from him."

Marcia sighed in exasperation. "All right. But you better be back as soon as possible!"

All Casey could muster as she pulled up to a tree-shrouded driveway was a subtle "mhm," and she hung up. She shifted the car into park just off the road, shut it off, and stepped out into the oppressive bayou humidity. Examining the address written on the e-mail printout crumpled in her sweaty palm, she knew that this had to be the right place.

She started up the overgrown trail and continued until she came to the front iron gates of a dreary, looming house. A rusted intercom was perched on one of the rails, and she tried the 'call' button, to no avail. She then tried to yank at the gates themselves, but they were tied together with a chain.

"Well, shit," Casey muttered as she looked back up at the house. She turned to walk back to the car when a side trail, curved around the gates of the estate, caught her eye.

_ This is a dumbass idea Cooke,  _ her conscience screamed, trying to go back on its conviction to rescue her boyfriend. However, her curiosity won out, so she strengthened her resolve and began to follow the path.

As she journeyed on, she found a dilapidated white van parked- or, rather, broken down- by a busted-open side fence.  _ Whose van is this?  _ she wondered as she cautiously approached it. The door, albeit crooked and beaten in, slid open easily to reveal an interior furnished only by a manila folder.

Casey plucked the folder up and examined it. The words  **SEWER GATORS** were emblazoned across the front, accompanied only by the caption,  **Sneaking into a Louisiana ghost house.** The folder was full of scripts and jotted notes and half-baked ideas, but the red writing on the back of the folder sent a chill down her spine.

**JOIN US**

Shivering, she took a step back from the van. Nothing was stopping her from turning back. And yet...she couldn't. It may have just been that the van resembled the one that Kevin drove for the zoo, but she remembered her purpose and steeled her nerves. Stepping toward the fence, she made out another cryptic phrase scrawled on a piece of plywood in a substance resembling mud:

**ACCEPT HIS GIFT**

_ I can't do this, I can't do this, _ Casey screamed internally.  _ This is way too fucking creepy, why is he at an abandoned house like this? Was someone else looking for him too?  _ Her mind raced in terror, attempting and failing to process all of the blatant red flags.

And yet, her legs moved her along with a mind of their own, fueled by all of the memories.  _ The initial awkward smiles as you bumped into him at the tiger exhibit. Holding his hand in the courtroom. Him helping you study for your Intro to Zoology exam. Curled up in his apartment under the zoo because Marcia kicked you out for her date night,  _ Casey recalled, trying desperately to think about anything other than the van and persuade herself to trek onward.

The swarms of insects grew thicker, and Casey became increasingly unsettled by the overgrown path and that ever-notorious feeling of being watched. Every time she turned her head to absorb the scenery, she thought she saw something- or someone- just out of the corner of her eye. However, when she whipped back around to look, it always vanished.

After a few more minutes of paranoia and reminiscence, she was snapped back to reality by a murder of crows darting out of an alcove. She peered in and saw that they had been feeding on a deer carcass. Used to the sight from hunting trips with her father, she shrugged off the initial shock and pivoted back to the path.

Casey regretted her entire train of thought up to that point, horrified by what she saw next. A wreath of cow legs was strung up from every angle on the tree branches and rocks, and circular saw blades dangled from it like disturbing Christmas ornaments. She brought her left hand up to her mouth and gasped, attempting to hold the vomit at bay.

_ Come on, Casey,  _ she told herself as she lowered her quivering hand. Tears were forming in her eyes, and she had to force her trembling jaw to close so as to prevent bugs from entering her throat.  _ You're in redneck country. There's a lot of weird shit like this. Just keep going… _

__ She gingerly approached the monument of flesh and, careful not to touch the rotting carrion, grabbed an exposed rope to duck underneath. All was calm again, until she happened upon a scattered murder of freshly dead crows in the trail. She gulped down her fright, slightly numbed by the flesh monument from earlier, and pushed forth.

The trail ended at a small ledge, which overlooked a dead clearing adorned by mangled trees, steaming puddles, and a small house. Casey almost turned away from this clear event horizon until it caught her eye.

_ Kevin's Philadelphia Zoo backpack. _

It was the first sign of him she had seen in this seventh circle of Hell, and, acting against her better judgment, she hopped down. She ran to where the backpack was rather haphazardly lying against a boulder and unzipped it. Sure enough, Kevin's driver's license was on top, except it was covered in black mud.

_ Wait, this isn't mud,  _ Casey thought.  _ What the hell is this? Wait…this was what was on that sign at the fence… _

__ She dropped it in disgust, jumped back, and looked to the house. Thick ivy had trailed all the way up the chimney, and the forest seemed to have claimed the roof. Seeing as there was nowhere else to go, she made her way to the porch and stepped up. All of the sunlight that lit her unsettling amble prior to this seemed to disappear, as the porch had been draped over by the omnipresent ivy. The only light she had to see by was anything that filtered through and a dim, cone-shaped lamp perched on the wall just to the right of an open door.

Through the door, Casey could only see an old window shutter leaning up against a worn wall. Everything else was pitch black, so she took a few steps inside to get a better look.

**_creeeaaak- WHAM!_ **

__ Casey nearly jumped out of her skin as she was plunged into a total abyss of darkness. She fumbled at her belt with her flashlight, clicked the button on the end, and whipped back around to the door, now firmly shut. She ran into it full force, trying to ram it with her left shoulder, but nevertheless, it stayed. Moving the flashlight up to her teeth, she proceeded to shimmy and tug the doorknob with her trembling hands, trying to push the door back open, but it refused to budge, and the doorknob wouldn't turn, indicating that it was locked.

"FUCK!" Casey spit out as she slammed her right arm against the door one last useless time.

She turned back to the room. There was only one other door and an empty corner to curl up and panic in. Knowing it could be her only chance to find an escape route, she puffed her chest and strode up to the other door.

On the other side was a long hallway scattered with lattice and wallpaper, lit by the exposed part of a window covered mostly by a worn-out wardrobe. Every board creaked underfoot as Casey proceeded to the end of the hall. She entered a cluttered kitchen and regained hope for escape when she saw an exposed pair of windows. However, they were only half a foot from a ridge outside upon further inspection, and she was back to square one.

The table behind her held a closed soup pot and a newspaper. She reached out to lift the lid from the pot, and, upon seeing the slimy, rotted contents, nearly added a new ingredient to the disgusting concoction. The experience was only worsened by a cockroach skittering over her hand by the rusted lid. She let out a small shriek in disgust and hastily flicked her wrist at the opposite wall a few times until her unwanted partner came free.

Casey moved back to the wall housing the tormenting windows and continued to poke around. Reaching the fridge, she pulled on the handle, but the door only opened the slightest bit. She wrapped her other hand around the door itself and, with one hard pull, threw the door open. The inside was coated with a disgusting goo, and she let the hinges do their work to pull the refrigerator shut again, opting to look at the newspaper back on the table.

**Over 20 Missing In Two Years**

Casey's mind began to spiral with hopelessness as she backed away.  _ This was a fucking mistake. Kevin's dead. I'm going to die here.  _ She whipped her head around to look at the next set of windows. Boarded up.  _ I should have brought someone with… wait!  _ She went to pull her phone out of her pocket, but terror dawned on her as she realized that it wasn't there.  _ I put it back in my pocket...didn't I?  _

_ It's still in the car.  _ Her heart immediately dropped into her stomach. _How could I be so stupid?_

_ Keep moving, the panic will make things worse,  _ she reprimanded herself as she continued into the next room. A set of stairs was immediately to her right, so she chose to ascend. 

The room at the top was as dilapidated as everything else in the house. A button with the word  **Stairs** carved on the metal plating above it sat crookedly on a support pole. Casey pressed it, praying for some miraculous stairway to the roof so she could slide down, but it didn't respond. She rounded the corner of the room and found a lonely oak dresser donned with a crooked lamp and a VCR tape. She picked up the latter, frantically turned to look around the room for anything else of use, and dejectedly went back down the stairs.

To her right as she descended was another hallway, so Casey began to investigate. Her search took her to another door leading into a sitting area. The furniture was pointed every which way, and papers were strewn all over the floor. As she entered, she noticed two things.

One, there was a fuse box with one fuse missing.

Two, there was a TV turned on, set to play from the VCR.

Casey turned the tape over in her hands, crossed her fingers that it had even one iota of useful information for how to get the hell out of there, and pushed it into the player slot.

_ A man resembling a rat wearing a suit looked exasperatedly at the camera, then back to his producer, who towered over him. "Where did you find this guy?" he asked. _

_ "Give me a break, Joseph." _

_ "Hey! I only work with professionals. Speaking of which, make sure the sound is right this time, I don't want a repeat of Amarillo." _

_ "That was two fucking years ago!" _

_ "I don't do ADR." _

_ The producer waved to the cameraman to follow him and his douchey companion, and they hustled up to the derelict house. The cameraman could hear Joseph bitching about him to the producer mixed in with spouting ideas for what shot to use for an intro. Their humble band of three journeyed along the veranda to the closed door. _

_ "Are we rolling?" Joseph asked impatiently. The cameraman gave a thumbs up, and he finished, "Alright. Let's go." _

_ The door was locked, but with one swift kick, the producer gained the motley crew entry. Joseph pushed his way past and asked, "Why are we in hell this time?" _

_ His producer rubs his head in exasperation. "Do you ever prep?" _

_ "What is there to prep? Shitty house, spooky sounds. Ooh, is it haunted?" Joseph grunts in disgust. "I was an anchor, you know." _

_ "Weekend sub, Joseph. Not anchor." _

_ Indignantly, Joseph turned back to his producer and asked, "So, what's the story, Jai?" _

_ "Abandoned farm house. Missing family. Foul play suspected. The usual. Been vacant for three year-" _

_ "Fletcher, get a shot of this! It'd make a great cutaway. So, Jai, Hillbilly Joe and his family go-" _

_ Jai scoffs. "Not hillbillies. The Smiths. Dennis and Patricia Smith. And they were quiet, not backward. Lot of bad rumors about their son, Luke." He took off into the next room while Joseph stayed behind to whine to Fletcher about his shoes. However, when he started calling for Jai again and no reply came, Joseph only grew more pissed. _

_ "I swear to God, this is the last time I work with that guy!" Joseph exclaimed as the pair ventured down the hallway to the sitting room. "I mean, producers come and go, but...a good cameraman like you, Fletcher? Y-you stick with me." _

_ Joseph reached the door to the sitting room just as a raucous clanging sounded from the other side, sending him into another furious outburst. After he cooled down, he reached gingerly for the doorknob and pushed it open. _

_ "Jai?" Joseph called. "Where the fuck is he?" They ventured around the helter-skelter furniture and Joseph crouched by the dusty fireplace. "What the hell?" he exclaimed, tugging at a hidden handle. After a few creaks in the walls, a secret door opened across the room. _

_ "A-alright, new deal. We find Jai and go," Joseph grumbled in a quavering voice. The men crouched and ducked through to the hidden room. Apart from a few crates, the room was notable only for a ragged hole in the floor and a ladder down through it. _

_ "You first," Joseph whimpered out. "Need a nice hero shot of me c-coming down the ladder." Fletcher let out a quick huff, shoved his camera and flashlight into his sweatshirt, and proceeded to descend. _

_ Retrieving his items, Fletcher slowly turned around to find Jai standing like a pillar, facing some pipes along the wall. He reached out and grabbed his shoulder, but Jai's body was limp, and turning him around revealed that his face had been smashed against the pipes as he had a considerable gouge through his right eye and blood poured from his broken teeth. _

_ Fletcher screamed as he fell back, bringing Jai on top of him. The camera began to cut out, and the last shot featured an approaching person in heavy workboots, followed by more shrieks. _

Casey didn't have the willpower to hold in her vomit anymore. Assuming that whoever murdered the men in the video wouldn't mind even more filth in their already decrepit home, she stumbled over to the furniture and emptied the contents of her stomach underneath the coffee table.

After wiping her mouth with a crumpled sheet of paper, she weighed her options. She could take a chair to the front door, but it was obvious by this point that she was being deliberately trapped. She could also try to pry open a window, but who knew if her captor is watching from every angle. Hell, she could just give up and await certain death…

_ But Jai specifically said three years ago. If Kevin is here, I need to know. _

Finally, she begrudgingly turned her head to the fireplace.

It was the only way.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been three years since Kevin disappeared on a transport assignment for the zoo. However, when Casey receives an e-mail from him requesting to be picked up from a farm in Louisiana, she finds herself and her boyfriend plunged into a night of mortal terror filled with betrayal and revelation.
> 
> A Resident Evil 7: Biohazard AU

Casey slowly staggered back into a crouching position, careful not hit her head on the coffee table. Eyeing up the ominous hearth on the nearby wall, she took a deep breath and shuffled over to it. With an outstretched arm, she felt her way around the top of the fireplace until her hand ran across a chilled metal handle, and she pulled downward.

**_Chink-chink-chink-chink-creeeaaaak_ **

The hidden door, which had blended in with the wainscoting around the room up until now, cracked inward slightly, revealing the way that the men in the video had taken. Casey shuffled over to it, every cell in her brain screaming that it was a bad idea, but her body had taken control now.

_ I can't escape anyway,  _ she reminded herself,  _ so the only way to go is down. _

Upon entering the small room on the other side, she stood up, grateful to stretch her legs. The room was still in as bad of shape as it was in the video and, to both Casey's excitement and dismay, the ladder still plunged into the dilapidated abyss. She crept over to it, turned herself around, and began her descent into hell, tucking her flashlight into her bra strap.

About six rungs down, however, the rotten wood snapped in her right hand. She hung onto the ladder with her left hand and foot before bringing her right back to the rung below, but her weight was too much for the rung to bear. It broke apart in Casey's hands, and she plummeted to the ground below, watching fifteen more rotted rungs fly before her eyes. With a hard landing on her back, she felt the air forcefully escape her lungs, which could only be vocalized with a small whimper.

After taking a breath, Casey grunted a small "Dammit" before gingerly rolling over and steadying herself back to her feet. She stepped over to her flashlight, which had clattered near the brick wall, and scooped it up. The room she now stood in was a dank dungeon, and she shined her light to the pipes on the other wall, now devoid of life...or death.

Just to the left of the pipes was an entryway. The same entryway that the person with the workboots had come through before the video cut out. Casey rounded the corner into a foreboding hallway lit only by a caged lightbulb that declined into a pit, washed out by the bayou. She was unnerved by the prospect of trudging through the likely diseased and leech-infested water, but she knew she was without choice.  _ Besides,  _ she jested to herself,  _ it can't be worse than having my face smashed into a pipe. _

She soldiered onward and scooted herself into the neck-deep water, shivering as her body heat transferred to it. Narrow fluorescent lights rounded a corner and made a discernible path for Casey to follow. Immediately around the corner, she came to a rafter and had to crouch slightly. She shuddered as she lowered all but her face into the grimy water and quickly stood back up as soon as her head was clear.

Casey rounded another corner, and another dim hallway on dry land came into sight beyond the next rafter. She hastened her pace the best she could and resumed her stances from the prior rafter. 

As she crept through, something popped out of the water just two inches from her face, and she reeled back, now fully submerged in the water. The grime burned her eyes and throat, and after regaining her balance, she stood back up and stared at what had startled her.

Bobbing in front of her was Jai's head, half-rotted and covered in maggots, severed brutally and still gouged through. Casey heaved at the sight, thankful to rid herself of any water she swallowed and horrified yet again by this nightmarish journey. She sloshed water around her slightly to bob the gruesome decapitation away from her, finished her amble under the rafter, and edged along the wall to avoid any more surprises.

Upon reaching dry land, Casey wrung out her hair and waved her t-shirt against her body. She dropped the turgid flashlight to the ground, praying that more of the halls would be lit up as it clattered to her side. Removing her shoes, she poured water out of them and wrung out her socks before putting them back on and continuing on to the heavy wooden door in front of her.

It was unlocked and gave way with a quick shove. On the other side was a true dungeon, grimly adorned by brick support columns and wrought-iron cages. Casey's heart raced at record-breaking speed as she pushed forth. Every part of her shook from the combined chill that the evaporating water instilled in her and the terrifying thoughts of what could possibly be happening here.

She spun around as the door slammed shut behind her.  _ Of course this is a fucking trap,  _ she told herself drearily.  _ The backpack, the windows, the tape, the ladder, the head… _ Her head was swarming, but she was desperate to escape, and her only hope was to venture further into the clutches of whomever was keeping her here.

An incandescent lightbulb flickered brightly from the ceiling about midway through the dungeon, casting an eerie glow onto a slab of wood covered in drawings. Casey turned to examine this mural, first noticing a stick figure family doodled in red. A father and mother stood together at the top of the slab, while two- _no, three_ \- smaller figures were positioned further down. A son, a daughter, and a cryptic dwarf with a darkened face.

To the right was a spiral of  **I'm sorry** over and over again, descending to the center until the messy script became illegible and took the vague shape of an eye, which glowered into Casey's soul as she tried to choke back tears at the haunting message. She stepped away from the slab and rounded another corner.

Light.

A golden glow filtered through a cage at the end of this hall. Casey hurried toward it and was left incredulous by the sight on the other side. A broad, muscular form was sprawled on a filthy mattress in the back corner; his head lay angled slightly toward the back wall; his right arm rested over his chest, which slowly rose and fell; and he was donned in a grungy white t-shirt and torn, loose-fitting jeans, with a mop of brown hair laying unkempt over his face.

"Kevin!" Casey gasped, joy flooding through her veins for the first time in this shithole. She didn't expect him to actually be here, and  _ alive _ , after viewing the disheartening video tape.  _ Oh my God,  _ she thought with relief,  _ he's actually here. I'm trapped and there's death everywhere, but...he's fine.  _

She didn't even try to hold back her tears now. Letting the floodgates open, she resolved herself to get herself and her long-lost boyfriend out of that godforsaken house.

A chain was wrapped around the cage door's handle, and Casey searched frantically for something to remove it with. To her left was the entryway to a small workshop lit by a fluorescent light tube, which she entered and did a once-over of.

The first thing she noticed was a small sheet of paper with writing laying on the workbench. Casey approached the document and read it. A list of names on the left, and the words  **Dead** and  **Turned** directly across from each. Three entries in particular stood out to her as she looked on in horror.

**Joseph - Dead**

**Jai - Dead**

**Fletcher - L**

Casey swore to herself that the minute she and Kevin left, she would find a payphone and call the cops on whatever malevolent bastard inhabited this pit of horrors. Turning the paper over, she was disturbed further by the top entry, lacking a word to its right.

**Kevin**

_ Couple of fighters, aren't we?  _ Casey remarked mentally as she wiped the tears from her eyes. A gleam to her right ripped her attention away from the list, and she saw her ace in the hole. A brand new pair of bolt cutters. She reached for the clunky tool, nearly the length of her arm, and pulled it toward her as she pivoted back to the doorway.

Casey rushed to the cage door and forced the heavy handles open. Lining up the jaws of the cutters around the chain, she mustered her strength and heaved them shut. They firmly bit down on the thin chain, and with a few more seconds of pressure, her obstacle snapped and clattered to the stone floor. She threw open the door and practically sprinted across the cell to Kevin's bedside.

"Kevin?" Casey squeaked out, shaking the man's shoulder and attempting a brave face. "Oh my God...Kevin, it's me! It's Casey!"

"Casey," he exhaled in a raspy voice as his eyes drifted open. Upon seeing the face for this name, his gaze widened and he pushed himself up to a sitting position. "Casey?" he asked, his expression filled with anxiety and disbelief.

"Oh my God, babe," she sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug. "I'm so glad you're still alright."

He swung his legs around to the edge of the bed and hastily shoved her away. Casey, alarmed by how cold his demeanor had turned in a split second, stared into his fearful ocean eyes. After a few heaving breaths, Kevin finally exclaimed, his voice pitched up by terror, "You shouldn't be here!"

"What do you mean?" Casey asked, her eyes welling up. "You messaged me!"

"No! I wouldn't!" Kevin bolted up from his seat, then sat back down as his voice gained a layer of delirium. "Did I?"

A lightning bolt of fear flashed across his face as he stood up. Gripping Casey's shoulders and gazing into her eyes, he inquired hurriedly, "Did anyone see you? Did HE see you?"

"He?" she repeated back to him as he looked out of the cell. Her heart dropped into her stomach as she realized how fucked they were if Kevin, strong and intelligent  _ Kevin, _ was scared witless of whomever had lured her here.

"Dad is coming," he told her as he snatched her wrist and pulled her along. "We need to go!"

"Dad?"

Instead of an explanation, he only repeated with a slight crescendo, "We need to go NOW!"

Kevin ventured out into the workshop and ran across the room to a narrow passage with Casey in tow. Before proceeding, however, she pulled back, bringing his face to hers as she rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"What the hell is going on? Baby...you've been gone for three years," she murmured.

This only distressed him more. "Has...has it really been three years?" This was punctuated by a shake of his head as he stepped away from Casey and continued on through the passage.

They journeyed onward, and they reached a doorway that was blocked by a rack of metal shelves. Casey stopped Kevin before he attempted to squeeze through the opening between the rack and the wall.

"You need to tell me what's going-"

"I don't fucking know, Casey!" Kevin snapped, tears forming in his eyes. "I didn't send you that damn message, all I know is the family brought food through here. Just…" He sighed with dejection. "Let's go."

Kevin's eyes lit up as they squeezed through to the other side and a wooden door came into sight. He pushed it open, and they entered into a cellar furnished only by a metal cart and a sofa.

Kevin sprinted to the opposite wall. "What the…there was a door here. It's gone!" His frenzied breathing calmed as he turned around and gazed to a confused Casey. "Babe," he whispered staggering to the sofa, "we can be a family now."

Casey was frightened by this display, and choked out, "I'll look through the storage closet," gesturing to a small room off to the side.

The closet circled around a set of shelves decorated by nondescript crates and a single doll. Casey lifted the doll from its shelf and examined it. It was the size of her hand and plastic, portraying a redheaded, freckled little boy wearing a blue and yellow tracksuit.

**_Crash!_ ** "Let me go, you fucking bastard!"

Casey dropped the doll and ran back out to the main room. Kevin was nowhere to be seen, and a giant doorway now stood in the wall that he had so anxiously scoured earlier. She crept to the doorway and peered through, finding a concrete staircase just to her left. Starting her ascent back to what she hoped could be called the real world, she found the door at the top of the stairs cracked slightly open.

It opened into yet another long hallway, but at least this one looked like something one could find in a normal home. The windows along the opposite wall were boarded up, but Casey could hear the rumbling thunder and pouring rain on the other side. A dresser with a landline phone sat beneath the nearest window, and for a moment she was hopeful again that she could get herself and Kevin out of this prison. That was, until she picked up the handset and heard a series of damning beeps.

Casey slammed it back down and continued on. The next door she came to was a decrepit bathroom. A few palm-sized plastic bottles of medical ointment sat by the sink, and she picked them up and shoved them into her belt loops, now dry enough to carry them without slipping.

**_Bambambambambambambam!_ **

The knocking came from back down the hallway.

Casey hurried out of the bathroom and back down the hallway, finding the door to the stairs shut. The raucous noise ended shortly and was punctuated by the dragging of metal against concrete.

Casey lightly shoved the door open and cautiously inched down the first two steps, breathing in unison with a raspier, more primal breath from below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the games begin...


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> True to his e-mail, Kevin has been found in the abandoned house. The only problem is, he wasn't responsible for bringing Casey here...

Casey's heart pumped so hard she could hear it. Someone... _ something... _ waited for her to take one more step down the stairs. As she descended, she finally saw it. A hunched figure with deathly pale skin and stringy brown hair, built of pure muscle showing through his dingy t-shirt, crawled up the stairs.

Casey's jaw quaked as she pitifully attempted to address the approaching menace. "K-K...Kev…"

He lunged at her and grabbed her by the throat, holding his face to hers and breathing the scent of death. His eyes were opened maniacally wide, his teeth were speckled with black as his mouth opened in a wild grin, and his complexion was ghostly pale. In one swift motion, he retracted his arm and thrust her back up through the doorway. Casey crashed into the wall behind her and fell forward, catching her breath and staggering back to her feet.

Kevin now stood directly in front of her, that menacing smile still disgracing his disfigured face. Casey held up a hand and mouthed, "Easy." 

It did little to stop him from grabbing her wrist and pulling out a kitchen knife in his right hand.

Kevin flung Casey to the side like a ragdoll and got down on his hands and knees to crawl after her. She rolled over and reached out a hand to block, which gained her a slit on the bony part of her wrist as he thrust the knife down at her. He continued to climb fully on top of her as she thrashed to deter him, but by the time she could see into his enraged blue eyes, it was too late.

The knife had gone clean through her left hand, and Casey screamed out in pain.

Kevin slid the knife back out of her hand, and she took this opportunity of retreat to kick him back and whip around to her feet. He had fallen, but was back on his feet in an instant, scrambling back down the hall.

"Wait...Kevin, hold on! Stop!" Casey shrieked at him as she backed away, but he refused to back down, instead lifting the knife as he ran. He gave her a few more nasty slashes on the wrist until she finally got a hold of him, his arm in her left hand and his face in her right. With all her might, she pushed back against the brutal onslaught.

Kevin staggered backward again before a third charge. Casey wrapped her hand around the blade, able to ignore the pain of it slicing through her palms by continuing her resistance. She was unable to keep him completely at bay, however, as he sunk the knife into her shoulder before dropping it to the floor and shrinking back.

Casey looked down to her blood-spattered hands in horror and reached down to retrieve the gory weapon. Looking up at Kevin from her trembling crouch, he now stood clutching his head, his appearance back to normal. 

"I can hear him," he groaned, his face exhibiting pure pain, "he's...clawing his way back inside of me." 

The pitch of his voice elevated as he reeled his head back. "Get out!" he screamed, slamming his head into the wall. "Leave me alone!"

Another slam. 

His tone fell into defeat. "I've been bad. I deserve this." One final slam, and Kevin collapsed onto his back.

Casey heaved, but her stomach had nothing left to expel, so her eyes made up for it in a tsunami of tears as she stared down at her boyfriend's body sprawled on the floor. "What the fuck happened to you?" she thought out loud in a choked whisper.  _ What happened to the loving hugs? The gentle kisses? The reassurances?  _ Her memories harassed her.  _ What the hell in this place changed them into knife fights and amnesia and cryptic messages? _

Casey didn't want any more of this. She hustled to the end of the hallway and found a door around the corner. Locked.  _ Like everything else in this goddamn house, _ she grumbled internally. Deciding to go back to the basement and search for another exit, she ventured back down the hallway.

And was stopped in her tracks by Kevin rising to his feet like a marionette and regaining his sickly look from earlier.

He grabbed her arm and twisted it into submission, causing the knife to clatter to the floor, and pulled her closer to him by the throat, growling in her ear, 

" _ Leave me." _

She crashed through the wall into an abandoned room and watched as Kevin yanked at an exposed stake in the wall, attempting to free it as a weapon. A gleam caught Casey's eye, and she reached for it as she rolled over to her hands and knees. Catching the smoothly carved handle, she pulled back and spun around to face Kevin, who had almost wrenched the stake free.

Casey readied her axe. If he was going to start another fight, she was going to finish it.

She sprinted at him and swung, landing a gash on his shoulder just before he could bolt out of the way. They exchanged a few slashes and blocks back and forth before Kevin shoved Casey away, and they squared up to each other.

Casey went in for another shot, but Kevin was ready this time. He thrust the stake into her torso, barely missing her vital organs and retracting as she stumbled back. She held him off as he approached again, threw in a few futile punches to his jaw, and shoved him away. 

Lining up her last shot, Casey landed the axe directly in the crook of Kevin's neck.

He slowly turned his head up to look at her, the color returning to his face and the light fading from his cerulean stare. His body began to collapse, and Casey reached out with a trembling hand. Despite his returned reach, Kevin went down, driving the axe further into his neck and spilling a pool of blood around his head.

Casey's breathing grew shallow as she stared down at Kevin's body. The pain from her multiple stab wounds was catching up with her, and her head throbbed as she tried to process the hopeless sight in front of her. 

_ You murdered him.  _

_ He tried to kill me first. _

_ He's still the fucking love of your life, you callous bitch.  _

Every one of her internal monologues was screaming, tugging her in a different direction, justifying her actions and demonizing her for them over and over and over again.

An electronic ringing sounded from down the hall. Casey gingerly stepped out of the room and peered at the phone. The orange light was flashing. Incoming call. She ran as fast as she could and picked up the handset, and a sassy, effeminate voice with a light Southern twang began to speak.

_ "You really shouldn't have come here." _

Casey was beyond pissed at the lack of information surrounding her calamity. "Who's this? And what the fuck is going on?"

" _ My name's Jade. There should be a way out through the attic." _

**_Beeeeeeeeeeeep._ **

Casey looked at the handset in disgust before replacing it. As she turned back to the long hallway, she heard a door squeak open and shut in rapid succession and paced back to the enormous hole in the wall. A bloody smear trailed out of the room and around the corner.

"Kevin?" Casey asked between incoming sobs. As she looked into the room, she was greeted by the axe, planted firmly into a plank of wood. She removed and readied it with her good hand, preparing for whatever skirmish waited beyond the next door.

It was wide open, revealing the main hall in as much disarray as she had left it, give or take the claw marks and blood spatters of Kevin's escape. Casey recalled that this Jade girl had told her to take the attic, but it very well could be a trap. Nevertheless, she wracked her brain to figure out a route up there.

_ The missing fuse!  _

She flashed back to the locked armoir in the first hallway.  _ It HAS to be hiding something!  _ She told herself, ecstatic at the renewed prospect of escape.

Casey journeyed through the kitchen, pulled by the thunder- at least, she hoped it was thunder- from overhead. Readying the axe, she hacked at the door, making five heavy swings before it shattered fully open, revealing the desired fuse on a hat shelf.

After slipping it into her waistband, she turned back to the kitchen and froze. Across the long room, she could see Kevin stumbling past the doorway to the stairs. She took a deep breath, desperately wishing she wouldn't be so afraid.  _ It's just Kevin, _ she reminded herself as she trekked forth.  _ Sweet, caring sensitive Kevin. _

However, her ego overcame her denial.  _ This isn't YOUR Kevin. _

Casey readied the axe as she rounded the corner, but there was no sign of him. She made quick work of reaching the living room and replacing the fuse, ready to leave this house of death and the hollow, bloodthirsty shell of her boyfriend behind.

That is, until Kevin tumbled out of a small closet beneath the stairs.

He tenderly reached for Casey's arm as she remained petrified where she stood. "Casey, babe, it's me, you're okay!" he reassured her, guiding her as he inched backwards. He kept a hand behind his back, and upon noticing this, Casey began to struggle but his grip only tightened as he cooed, "I know you didn't mean to hurt me."

Kevin had already started to morph back into the pallid monster as he finished this sentence, and he slammed her into the wall along the stairs by her shoulders. "But you shouldn't have done that," he whispered heavily into her face, his breath smelling of decaying flesh. He pulled her left hand up further on the wall and pulled a screwdriver from behind his back. "It fucking hurt!" he screamed, driving the tool through the open wound in her hand.

Casey screamed for help, knowing it wouldn't come, as Kevin trudged away. She couldn't bring herself to cry, having dehydrated herself in such a manner with each of the prior revelations. Trying to escape her compromising position, she reached for the screwdriver and tried her best to shake and twist it loose. 

A dull revving noise roared from just beyond the stairs and she tugged harder. With a final strong pull, she removed it and held her left hand out in front of her to hastily block whatever attack Kevin had prepared.

The chainsaw cut through her wrist like it was melted butter.

Casey shrieked out in agony as her hand fell to the floor. Kevin growled, grabbed her by the throat, and lobbed her back, leaving her to watch him retreat as she wrapped her right hand around the raw stub in a pointless effort to contain the rapid bleeding. She climbed slowly to her feet, her breathing shallow and her vision spotty, and muscled her way up the stairs.

A quick press of the button at the top released a creaky set of steep stairs from the ceiling. Casey ascended, refusing to lose the light at the end of the tunnel. She was met by a dusty passage with a wide open door on the right, light flowing out of it from a small white lamp. Stumbling through the door, she spotted a welcome friend on a cedar table and slid the narrow axe into her last available belt loop.

Resting before her was a loaded M19 handgun and a magazine of bullets. Casey slipped the latter under her bra strap and pulled out a tube of ointment. She hoped that rubbing some on would at least dull the pain and slow the bleeding, and after her hasty medical procedure, she dropped the empty tube and picked up the gun.

"Playtime's over, fucker," Casey muttered, hardening her expression.

She reentered the corridor and rounded another corner, finding a door. Fumbling with the knob between her palms and the gun, it finally creaked open, and Casey stumbled into the rectangular room, which was covered in all manner of tarps. 

A pair of eerie mannequins were balanced against a support post in the room's center. And on the other side of the post, a ladder leaned precariously against the wall, leading up to a small cupola with a hatched window. Before ascending to freedom, Casey did another once-over of the room and picked up two more magazines, stowing them with her other spare. She nodded, and a small smile broke out onto her face.

_ I don't care what's controlling you, Kevin,  _ she resolved as she approached the ladder,  _ we never even knew each other. _

As she began her climb, the familiar revving sound came from overhead, and Casey opted instead to flee as sawdust sprinkled down from the cupola hatch. She sprinted across the room and only turned back as she heard the ladder clatter to the floor.

Kevin had hopped down and landed on his feet, and he was bolting toward her with the chainsaw.

Casey could only slow him down with a quick aim and fire directly between his rabid eyes, which only made him reel back slightly. He slowed his approach, and she began to back away cautiously continuing to fire at him.

"You…" he spat out between coughs of blood, "you were always watching me. I… don't need your HELP!"

Casey fled the room and kicked the door shut behind her, sprinting to the end of the hall. She hastily worked a new magazine out of her bra strap with her left elbow, moved the gun into its crook, and loaded it with her right hand before turning back and taking aim at the door.

"Why are you hiding, Casey?!" Kevin screeched before thrusting the chainsaw through the door and carving a long slash across it. The door collapsed, and Kevin emerged.

She shot him in the face twice, but it was no use. He charged, and Casey made a quick leap out of the way as Kevin screamed, "Forget about me! Everyone...is...relying on me!"

He came at her again, but Casey thrust her right hand against the plastic casing of the chainsaw, barely holding her assailant at bay. She took a swift kick at his balls and took off down the next segment of the corridor as he stumbled back. Casey now had a perfect shooting range as Kevin rounded the corner to follow her. 

_**Bang!** _ Forehead. 

**_Bang!_ ** Bridge of the nose. 

With those two shots, he dropped the saw to his right and fell to his knees, growling in a choked death rattle,

"I love you."

Kevin slumped over face first and a fountain of blood gushed from his face, but Casey wasn't taking any chances. She kept her gun trained on him and stayed about four feet away as she stared. There were no more tears to cry for this monster that repeatedly tried to kill her. Just the promise of escape and the thought of burning every last photograph she had taken with him.

She slowly crept around him, grunting in excruciating pain as the adrenaline wore off. But he didn't move this time as she stood by his feet. The wood creaked around the hallway, and a renewed uneasy feeling grew in her stomach as she aimed at the staircase back down at the second level, waiting for something else to come. When it was silent for a few long moments, she turned around, hoping the ladder wasn't broken.

A large hand grabbed her shirt and finished pivoting her around. Her eyes widened in fear and her breathing grew shallow as she looked up into the face of a tall, burly man. He wore a neatly-pressed yellow flannel tucked into his slacks and heavy workboots. His head and face were shaved, and his rectangular glasses gleamed over his dark eyes as he gave her an evil smile.

"Welcome to the family, kiddo."

With that, he slammed her head into the wall and let her fall to the ground like a rejected toy. 

Casey's last sight before the dark spots took over her field of vision was Kevin's bullet-riddled face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I'm sorry.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey is certain of one thing: the Kevin she has arrived at this house of horrors to rescue is not, and might never have been, HER Kevin. Little does she realize that her evening is about to get a hell of a lot worse...

Sloshing puddles and creaky iron gates. A series of sharp pains in her wrist, followed by a mellow female voice whispering, "You're not dying on me now." Casey wasn't sure which parts were delirious dreams and which were her consciousness fading in for a few seconds.

When Casey finally came to, she heard the clinking of silverware and the messy noises of chewing. Her back was stiff against the hard chair behind her, and her head's concussed pounding was exacerbated thanks to a putrid smell emanating from in front of her. As her vision came around, she slowly lifted her head.

Casey was sitting at a family dinner, one that could hardly be called normal. Across the long table from her was the man that rammed her head into the wall, the fluorescent lights from the dank kitchen behind him glinting off his bald head and the candlelight from a few scattered fixtures on the table producing an ominous gleam on his glasses. To his left sat a haggard woman with stringy black hair and a gaunt jawline, and to his right, a young man with a greasy brown quiff and some emerging stubble. Finally, just to Casey's left was a shriveled old man in a rusty wheelchair, whom she only realized was alive as she watched a slight rise and fall of his chest.

When she was fully awake, Casey looked to the center of the table and had to hold back a heave as she realized what the source of the horrendous smell was. The centerpiece of the dining table was a serving platter piled high with... _ Oh my God, are those intestines?! _

Casey gagged at the horrific realization and took the opportunity to choke out, "What is this place?"

The decrepit woman gave a sinister chuckle as she met Casey's rising gaze and, through a garish grin and in a calm Cajun accent, cut her off with, "It's time for supper, sleepyhead."

Casey shrunk back, flinching as the young man opposite this woman threw small bits of food at her. As her jaw trembled, she began to inquire, "Who...who are you people? Where's Kev-"

She was interrupted by the woman slamming her fist on the table. After staring deep into Casey's eyes for a few seconds, she lifted her fork and took a bite of the ghastly meal. "Eat it," she taunted. "It's good."

The younger man jolted up from his seat with his plate in his hand and hollered, in the thickest Southern accent Casey had ever heard, "Stupid bitch wouldn't know good if it hit her!"

With that, the disgusting plate crashed into her face, and the woman shrieked, "Luke! What the hell is wrong with you?" This was followed by the man directly opposite of Casey grabbing Luke's hand in his left and a steak knife in his right, sawing off the young man's hand in a few brisk strokes, and Luke half-heartedly protesting without showing any signs of pain.

As Luke cradled the bloody stub, Casey's captor stood up and muttered, "Out of my way, Patricia." Patricia obeyed and scooted her chair further into the table, and the man stomped around the table to where Casey sat, leaning down to gaze into her terrified brown eyes. In a failed attempt at a light tone, he announced, "This girl's got to eat! She's gotta have her supper…"

He lifted a spoon piled with innards in his right hand and forcibly held her mouth open with his left. "Come here, kiddo," he grunted, "let's do this, come on…"

Casey had already started to choke as the spoon neared her unwilling maw, and the minute the unsavory food entered her mouth, she spit it back out in a coughing fit. This sent Patricia into a hysterical fit, pointing at her and screaming, "Oh shit! She's not eating it, Dennis! She's not eating it!"

Dennis whipped around as Casey continued to expel the food from her throat, gruffly yelling, "Shut the hell up, Patricia!" Patricia screamed back to him, "I spent so long making that for her!" and was cut off by Dennis kicking a chair at her and commanding, "Get the hell out of here!"

Patricia stormed out of the dining room to a pair of doors by Luke's side of the table, but not before glowering into Casey's eyes and screaming, "You're an ungrateful little shit!"

Dennis turned back to Casey and picked up what looked like a gallbladder from her plate, holding it in front of her eyes as she tried not to vomit at the horrendous smell. "This," he started in an ominously calm tone, "was supposed to be a very SPECIAL feast!"

He lifted a knife from the table and moved it closer to Casey's face, pointed directly at the bridge of her nose. Luke watched in deranged excitement, and the old man, presumably the grandfather in this fucked-up family, remained useless as before.

**_Brrrrrrring_ ** _! _

The knife point was barely a finger's width away from piercing Casey's skin when the broken doorbell rang. Dennis and Luke looked at each other before the assumed son bared his teeth, stood up to leave, and muttered, "I'll bet it's that cop again."

Dennis slowly straightened his posture and slammed the knife back onto the table. Looking down at his yellow shirt, he grimaced at the blood staining his sleeve from the removal of Luke's hand and grabbed a dingy cloth napkin. With a final look back at Casey, he threatened, "I'm coming back for you," and stormed out.

Casey made a visual sweep of the room, ensuring that her only companion was the man on death's doorstep to her left. The scent of the meal still burned at the back of her throat, amplifying her fearful stupor. She went to bring her left hand up to brush away a snarled hair from her eyes, but it was cuffed to the arm of the chair by a small bracket.

_ Wait...left hand? _

She confusedly looked down at her returned appendage. A smartwatch was wrapped around her wrist, but she could see the hasty and slightly festering stitches under the band. She attempted to move her joints, and, despite the shooting pain throughout her hand, she could somewhat grasp the edge of the chair's arm with straight fingers.

_ So I didn't imagine that part, _ Casey deduced, recalling her trance from earlier.  _ But...who did this? How… _

The odor in front of her face snapped her back to the task at hand, which was escape. She began to rock the chair back and forth, and in a few difficult tilts, she fell onto her side. This sent a shock wave of pain through her freshly reattached hand, but it jarred the bracket just enough to snap it loose, and she fell out onto the floor.

Casey rolled over onto her front and pushed herself up with her right hand, trying her best not to agitate the patchwork on her left. Finally on her feet again, she edged around the table, keeping an eye on the elderly man before turning to the large entryway opposite the door that Patricia had exited through. It led into a small living room, lit up by a bent light fixture and littered with papers strewn about the floor. A stack of newspapers sat on a coffee table in the center of the room, the top dated back only two weeks.

**Three Missing During Local Urbex Trip**

Identification pictures of Joseph, Jai, and a guy she assumed to be the cameraman Fletcher were plastered on the front page. After stepping away, she began to search the room. One drawer on the opposite wall housed a magazine of bullets, and Casey sighed in frustration. Dennis had taken everything she had picked up in the...other house?  _ Are we in the same house as before? I don't remember any doors that this room could have been through…Are we in the main house?  _ She tried to make sense of the situation, but she also accurately guessed that she was going to have to navigate out of here like a rat in a maze.

Casey took the magazine anyway and shoved it in her pocket, hoping for the chance to find a gun soon. Cautiously stepping back into the dining room, she looked around at the various notes pinned on the wall surrounding the arches that looked into the kitchen. One was a hardware receipt listing a saw, ropes, and thirty pet collars. Another was a recipe, listing instructions on how to prepare a muscular female in her fifties. This led her into the kitchen, where several similar recipes were stuck on the fridge with magnets. Reluctantly, she pulled the door open.

Her mouth gaped open, but she clapped a hand over it to prevent the disgusted whimper from escaping. A plate of entrails similar to the one disgracing the table sat on the top shelf, and a bound pair of legs rested below it. Despite having been through worse a mere few hours ago, the blunt force trauma had resensitized her to each new shock, and she wished to go back to not feeling a damn thing.

There was a door at the end of the kitchen, and Casey slowly pushed the door open, only to find another room with garbage strewn all over. In its back corner, though, a hatch caught her eye. Lantern light filtered through the worn boards and barbed wire, but when she pulled, it was locked.  _ Yet another locked door, _ she internally grumbled.  _ I guess they don't want their food to escape. _

Casey turned back to the room and began to poke through the litter on the floor. Mostly papers, except for a small black boot wedged between a plywood pallet and the wall. Noticing something on it, she pulled it out and examined the heel, where one name was written.

**Hedwig**

_ That's odd,  _ she thought.  _ There weren't any little kids at the table, and I doubt this belongs to ol' grandpa out there… _

Casey let it fall to the ground and gingerly trekked back to the dining room, inexplicably unsettled by how Grandpa's gaze followed her through the arches over the counter. She pushed open the double doors behind his wheelchair and stepped out into the hallway. 

Across from her was a set of stairs with a scrap metal sign reading  **Garage** . She crept over and down the flight, hoping to find something useful to get away. However, the door was shuttered and the control panel firmly taped shut, putting that plan out of the question. She retraced her steps back to the hall.

To her right was a boarded and barbed window, so she turned left, going further down the hall. Before the turn to round the kitchen-and-closet wall, there was a heavy iron door off to the side. Casey tried it despite knowing it wouldn't budge, then turned her attention back to the hallway.

Just in time for Dennis to storm out from around the distant corner, holding a metal snow shovel.

Casey turned around and ran as lightly as she could back to the previous hall, ducking behind the corner to watch his next move. He turned from the wall and began to swagger closer to her, and she resumed her graceful strides back to a new hideout behind one of the open double doors.

**_Stomp-clink! Stomp-clink! Stomp-clink! WHAM!_ **

Dennis kicked open the next door from the hallway into the kitchen, and Casey knew she didn't have a moment to lose. She jumped out of her hiding place, slamming the door shut behind her, and ran to the kitchen door. Once that was pulled closed, she began to sprint around the corner and down the hall. A small chest of drawers sat in the next corner, and resting on it was a small key.  _ I hope this is for the hatch,  _ she pleaded to whatever was out there putting her through this, tiptoeing back down the way she came.

"Where'd that little bitch get to?" she heard Dennis ask from behind the closed doors, edging along the wall to keep track of his pounding footsteps. He sighed, then continued, "You know what they say. Once a family, always a family."

The kitchen door swung open, and Dennis stepped out, facing the opposite direction of Casey. She seized this chance to run to the double doors, threw one open, and stepped back into the dining room.

She made eye contact with Dennis, who had returned through his own door, in the process.

Casey bolted, hearing Dennis chastising her, "You thought you could just slip out before dinner was done?" as he charged toward her. As she sprinted up the hall to the kitchen door, she heard a great crash from the dining room, followed by Dennis's complaints of how the room looked like an absolute fucking disaster.

After hurrying through the kitchen, she found herself in the closet again, slamming the door shut behind her and dragging a pallet in front of it. Casey knew it wouldn't do anything, but at least she could get to the hatch. She readied the key and shoved it into the lock, just in time for the wooden door and pallet to crash into the room. In a swift series of events, she threw the hatch open, dove in, and fit the toe of her shoe into a small loop of barbed wire to pull it shut.

"Yeah, you have fun under there, girly," Dennis spat at her from the room above. "I'm coming back for you later."

The hatch had led into a long crawl space filled with a bunch of old junk and hardpacked with mud and stone. Casey knew she was near the outside wall, based on the cold draft that blew in through cracks in the sides. She untangled her shoe and moved toward some boards, kicking and shoving at them until she accepted her defeat at trying to escape through here.

That was, until a bright light from up ahead caught her eye.

Casey ventured toward the lights, coming to a small metal ramp that ended at a hole in the floor above. She stood up and looked around, grateful to find the room empty, before climbing up.

It was a beat up laundry room, and two things grabbed Casey's attention at once. A large, uncharacteristically clean hunting cooler sat in the corner with a bottle of antibiotic ointment on top. 

Meanwhile, another landline phone and a map, labelled  **Main House,** sat on a counter in the center of the room. For a moment, she considered trying to call the police again, but remembered how that had turned out with the phone in the back house.

She finally came to the door. It was the same iron door that had goaded her in the hallway before, and she turned the lock to exit.

That damned electronic ringing echoed in the room behind her as she went to push the door open, and she turned. The light was flashing. Casey huffed, hoping it was someone from the outside but knowing it was this enigmatic Jade girl. Upon reaching the table, she retrieved the handset.

" _ You did good, Casey,"  _ the mellow voice said somewhat cheerily.

"Jade, right? What the fuck are-"

" _ Shut up and listen if you want to stay alive. You gotta get outta that house. There might be a way out through the main hall." _

Casey sighed. "Alright."

" _ Oh. And don't lose that watch. It's helping your hand heal itself. Don't want you to get maimed or anything." _

**_Beeeeeeeeeeeep._ **

Casey replaced the handset and looked down at the smartwatch, realizing that it was much more elaborate than she had first noticed. Her pulse rate was being tracked, and a small needle held the monitor firmly at the top of her wrist.

"Hell-of-a-girl," Casey muttered. With the bottle of ointment secured in her free pocket, she turned back to the iron door, ready to face whatever monsters came next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Patricia should stick to sandwiches...


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey is left scrambling for a way out of the grips of her hosts. Dennis will do anything to make sure she never leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extreme violence ahead. Proceed at your own risk.

The dark hallway was clear, but that didn't stop Casey from slowly guiding the iron door closed in case any of her dinner partners were lying in wait. This mysterious Jade girl, whom she had an inkling might have been a member of this twisted family once upon a time, had told her to exit through the main hall. She consulted the map she had picked up in the laundry room.  _ Just at the other end of the hall _ , she observed.  _ Simple enough. _

Neatly folding the worn paper, she shoved it into her back pocket and tiptoed forth. The only new development in her setting was a gaping hole in the wall that led into the closet where Dennis had nearly cornered her. She concluded that he had beat through it with his shovel in a fit of rage while she was climbing to the safety of the laundry room. Thankfully, her pursuer had retreated elsewhere, but she kept her guard up in case he was watching from some dark corner.

Her path led into one final corridor, punctuated at its opposite end by a barbed window similar to the one by the kitchen, on the left side with a set of double doors, and on the right with an oak chest of drawers lined with picture frames. Out of curiosity, Casey approached the photographs, hoping to find a few clues as to whom she was up against.

The first frame she noticed was flipped down, and she lifted it to inspect the image. A young woman, seemingly not much older than Casey herself, sat sternly in a white cardigan and black dress in front of a garden. All she could make out of the woman's face was a gaunt jawline and tousled raven bob of hair, as the eyes had been scratched away.

_ Jade, _ Casey deduced.  _ Is she a traitor to their cannibal cult or something? _

The next was a simple headshot of the son from earlier.  _ Luke _ , she recalled, unsettled by the douchey smirk disgracing his face. Apart from a greasy pallor in his more recent complexion, he hardly looked different between the photograph and the wretched meal.

The true nature of the drastic change of this family was reflected in the next frame. Dennis and Patricia stood beside each other, smiling and glowing and exuding nothing but familial warmth. Dennis's shirt was tightly fit without a wrinkle to be seen, and the light from the flash photography gleamed off his shaved head and square-rimmed glasses as he gave a grin to the camera. Meanwhile, Patricia stood next to him in a pressed burgundy blouse and black skirt, her pitch hair tied back in a small twist as she gave a matching smile and gripped her husband's hand.

Finally, Casey turned to the double doors. While built of heavy iron, these were much newer and hardly fit in with the dilapidated house. The most out-of-place part of the sight was an incomplete crest adorning it to the left of center with a set of enormous slide bolts barring it to a valve crank on the other side. It was intended to depict a centaur, but while the torso was raised, the horse body was missing. Upon peering closer, she found a few small trigger releases embedded in the indentation, exactly deep enough that she couldn't press any of them.

"Just where the hell am I supposed to find half of a fucking crest?" Casey hissed as she whipped around and chucked the picture of Luke at the barricaded window. The longer she spent in this sinister estate, the more difficult it was to keep her emotions in check. All she could feel was rage and fear boiling in her veins.

_ No _ , she told herself, reining in her frustration.  _ Keep looking. It has to be around here somewhere. If you throw a tantrum now, you're only proving yourself to be truly desperate. They can sense your fear. _

It suddenly dawned on her. The cooler in the laundry room. It had to be holding something valuable. If not the crest, then at least something she can use to force the door open.

She hurried back down the hall, praying that the cooler was so clean because Jade used it to hold a stash of supplies, seeing as it was only accessible via the hatch when the laundry room door was locked. As she neared the door, though, she heard a firm knocking from the window by the garage. A flashlight shone in through the barbed wire, and she could hear a gruff voice commanding her to open up.

Casey sprinted to the window, ecstatic and tearful to see a human face speaking with a human voice, desperate for a reminder that there was a normal world outside of this circle of hell despite having been a part of it only a few hours ago. She collided with the window, finding a buff police officer standing outside. As he staggered back, she pleaded, "Please, sir, you have to help me."

"Hold on, back up," the officer ordered gently, looking her stoically in the eyes. "Now, miss, do you live here? I mean, is this your family's property?"

She was taken aback by his slightly accusatory tone, but shook her head after a split second as she played up her hysterical tears.

The officer sighed heavily. "Alright. Now, we got several calls about missing persons lately."

Casey, once grateful for the calm demeanor of a friendly face, was now pissed off at how he seemed to insinuate that she was involved with the disappearances. "You don't understand, I gotta get out of here!" she responded frantically, clapping her hand against the trim around the window.

"Now, hold on," he commanded sharply, his expression changing to that of full suspicion.

"Officer, please, listen to me. There are crazy people in this house trying to fucking kill me!"

He chuckled sardonically at her aggression, showing little mercy for the apparent outsider. "Alright, well let me tell you something, kid. You don't look like you're playing with a full deck yourself."

Casey's eyes flared open, and her anger did little to help her case. "Are you kidding me?" she spat with the venom of a black mamba. 

Resuming his seriousness, he calmed his tone to explain again. "Look, like I said, we've had several missing persons calls, and I can't rule out that an outsider like yourself may be involved."

She took a deep breath, exasperated by this new example on her long list of times the justice system had blamed her as a victim. In a calmed tone, she responded, "Alright, I'll tell you whatever you want."

"Alright, now that's more like it. Meet me in the garage. We'll talk there."

"Wait!" she called after him. He turned around and allowed her to speak. "There's tape over the button for the door. I don't have anything sharp enough to cut through it. Please, I don't know if these bastards are coming back for me, I can't fight them off on my own…"

As her voice and mind trailed off into madness, it finally sunk in how many alarms she must be setting off in the officer's mind. However, the most she could do to appear worthy of his calculating sympathy was plead through her glazed eyes.

After about a minute of staring down this frazzled girl, the officer rolled his eyes and slowly pulled his pocket knife out of his belt and handed it through the window. "I'll be wanting this back. Now get your ass down to the garage."

With that, he turned away, and Casey gave a deep sigh of relief. Freedom was finally within her grasp, and even if the cops decided to arrest her, she'd still be in a clean, safe cell instead of this festering cesspool, and she could finally go home to Marcia and sob the physical and emotional pain away into a friendly embrace.

Casey opened the pocket knife and started for the descending stairs. A small crate sat by the door, and she cut it open. Bullets.  _ Wish I had a gun to use them with,  _ she grumbled as she slipped the magazine into her pocket with the other magazine. She moved over to the rusty control box and slipped the knife into the crack of the door. It slid through the tape with little issue, and she pulled it open. A giant red button sat in the middle of the box, and she held it down as the shutter door creaked open.

A police car flashed its red and blue beacons just outside the larger door on the opposite end, and the officer was kneeled on the concrete floor, investigating a dark puddle. She slid the knife closed and put it in the pocket with the map.

She began to speak, tears of joy choking her voice. "Thank you...we have to get the hell out of-"

The officer spun to his feet and approached her in a fury. "Now first you need to tell me what you're doing out here alone in the middle of the night, kid!"

"Wha...what about you?"

"It's my damn job! Now do yours and answer me!"

Her chest heaved with sobs at the stress of being yelled at. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." 

However, when she heard the scraping groan, she wished the officer would have just cuffed her and taken her to the car right then. Her eyes widened with fear and the color drained from her face as her suspicions were confirmed by the damning sight across the room.

The garage door was lowering. And she could hear it happening behind her, too.

The officer turned around and, realizing what was happening, turned back to her and yelled at her to put the door back up. Despite his desperate commands, she staggered back as she saw the imposing figure strut up behind him with his shovel raised.

When she hit the wall behind her, the impact was grimly paralleled by Dennis thrusting his weapon through the officer's scalp.

His body went slack, and Casey watched in horror as it fell to the ground, spurting blood and gray matter. Dennis pulled the shovel back, eyeing up his next prey with a maniacal grimace. Before taking a step closer, he beat the shovel against the ground, trying to get the sticky scalp off so he would have a relatively clean shovel to do his work with. This was when she saw her chance for a last stand.

The officer's gun was lying on the floor.

She dove for it and scrambled out of the way as quickly as possible, checking it for ammunition. Fully loaded. With the magazines she had picked up, she could take him with a few decent shots.  _ That is, assuming he can only take as many shots to the face as Kevin could. _

Once behind a row of shelves, she heard the scalp finally shake free with a disgustingly slick noise. By her left thigh, a car key sat gleaming in the fluorescent lights. She picked it up, darted her gaze to a battered white car by the outside door, and bolted. 

"Fuck it! I'm killing every one of you!" Dennis shouted from across the garage as Casey threw the driver's door open. Slamming it shut behind her, she saw that he had raised the shovel, aiming at the front hood. She hastily jammed the key into the ignition as he continued to beat the engine with the shovel. Once she finally threw it into gear, he had moved in front of her, standing tall and glowering at her, issuing a single taunt.

_ "Come on." _

Casey gassed it, slamming Dennis into the opposite wall with her front bumper and thanking God for the lack of airbags despite the initial shock.

_ This motherfucker isn't going down with one hit _ , she reminded herself, and she reversed to line up another slam. Almost as if on cue, he stood up, a menacing smirk on his face as he ripped the remnants of his shredded shirt off and raised his shovel.

The next impact was so intense it shattered the windows and crumpled the bumper, barely missing what could have been a fatal blow to the engine. As Casey backed up again to deal another blow, Dennis darted behind a rack of tool shelves, and she swerved around to square up. Accelerating again, she braced herself for the force of colliding with the rack, but realized too late that she had barely even grazed him.

Dennis leapt on top of the car and ripped the roof off, climbing into the driver's seat with Casey and laughing hysterically in her face.

Asserting himself over every control, he started by kicking the car into reverse and slamming them into the wall. Casey coughed out a small "shit!" as the rear impact knocked the air from her lungs. Dennis continued by crossing the room and swinging the rear of the car into the last rig of shelves. With his free hand, he assisted the force of the vehicle in thrusting the steel beams constructing the shelves into the cheap wood wall, then drove back to the other side of the garage.

"Where'd you learn to drive?" he retorted, straightening the tires and putting their vehicle on a collision course with the steel beams.

Casey tried to wrestle Dennis's grip away from the steering wheel, but he simultaneously pinned her arms and legs with his left arm and leaned over to steer with his right. Lining up with the girders protruding from the opposite wall he looked down to her, his eyes as cold and vicious as the torment that followed.

"Let's finish this, you and I."

He slammed on the accelerator, cackling as the girl in his grip screamed at the girder coming exponentially closer to her skull. She hunkered down as far in her seat as she could, and when the collision finally occurred, her ears were ringing.

_ Everything hurts...am I...alive… _

Casey let her eyes drift open, and the first thing she saw was blood smeared over her white knuckles, now returned to the steering wheel. She lifted her head just half an inch before hitting the beam above her, and grunted at the dull roar that caused her body to ache as she looked to her right.

Dennis's corpse was a gore-smeared disaster. The beam had partially crushed him, and blood was splattered everywhere Casey could see as his frontal lobe protruded through his eye socket, vacated by the sensory organ that now laid in her lap. His glasses had shattered into his other eye, and his neck was snapped to an odd angle that let the blood from his crushed internal organs spill from his mouth.

Casey gingerly stumbled out through the barely-hinged door on her side, taking shallow breaths as it sunk in how lucky she was to even be walking. She smelled gas leaking, and she knew what came next. Scrambling to the other side of the room, she pulled her gun and turned to watch the car go up in flames. 

A charred arm extended from the passenger side, and Dennis stepped out in a ball of fire like a zombified phoenix. Without hesitation, Casey aimed directly for his throat and fired, causing him to falter. He continued toward her, and she shot him several more times in the face.

**_FWOOM!_ **

The gas tank combusted, and Casey was thrown back against the wall as Dennis fell onto his face. The gasoline puddle only extended halfway over to her, so she was out of the fire's range. He wasn't so lucky.

With one final explosion, Dennis's incinerated corpse flew to her feet, and in a few pained motions, she stood on wobbly legs. Before moving, she took aim at his bared ribcage, but there was no sign of him attempting to stand again. She crept cautiously over to a ladder that led to a loft, where something shiny had caught her eye. 

Her hand landed firmly on the first rung, and was forcibly accompanied by Dennis's.

She whipped around in fright to find herself staring into two functioning eyes, seemingly untouched.  _ They... they've regenerated… _

He grabbed the gun in her hand and aimed it at his chin, growling low. "Do I have your attention, bitch?" he asked menacingly. "You are about to see something  _ wonderful." _

Dennis put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. 

"Fuck!" Casey screamed in shock as his face exploded onto her and he stumbled back, letting her hand with the gun fall back to her side. He collapsed in a bloody, burnt mess on the floor. After watching for a minute to make sure he was actually dead, she turned back to the ladder, shaking as she ascended.

A frame sat on a small workbench, surrounding a large golden insignia of a horse's body. Relieved to finally see something helpful, she lifted it and turned it over. After undoing the screw on the back, the missing crest came off, and she gripped the cold metal tightly. 

Casey rummaged for some more supplies. Bullets here, antibiotics there...she had to get moving. There was a small alcove behind the workbench, and she mustered her strength to shove it aside.

After a small jump down from the loft, she landed back at the staircase that originally led her into this unlikely arena, and she hustled back inside to the newfound warmth of the destroyed house.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey narrowly escaped Dennis with her life. Searching for any method of escape, she begins to learn more about her harrowing predicament...

Casey sprinted as fast as she could to the iron doors of the main hall, crest in hand. She was still operating on the adrenaline from the skirmish with Dennis, guided by the promise of some sort of reprieve in the next room. The gilded body of the centaur fit neatly into the indentation, hitting every trigger, and she stepped back as the crest spun on its axis, pulling the enormous slide bolts from their locked positions. 

**_Kerrrrrr-chunk! Creaaaak…_ **

Casey pushed the door open and stepped into the main hall, which seemed to be but a shell of its former glory. Tiles and litter were strewn over the worn floorboards, and a dusty table with a crooked lamp, shining sporadically through a running fan, lit the large room. Two staircases, one on either of the walls parallel to the girl, ascended and met at a balcony above. On the perpendicular walls were, to the right, one open door with a golden light streaming out and, to the left, a closed door with an entryway.

She scavenged the nearest side of the room for materials, finding only a small bag of aloe leaves on the center table and a magazine of bullets under a dresser. Before she could heave her sigh of frustration, that taunting electronic ringing sounded from near the door that presumably led outside. Snapping her gaze up from the floor, she could make out a faint orange flashing from the entryway, causing her to leap to her feet and rush to the faded desk where it sat. Casey lifted the phone's receiver, awaiting her next instructions from Jade.

_ "Did my daddy give you a hard time?" _

While she had expected this revelation, Casey still couldn't believe there was any connection between the immortal man in the garage and the calm girl on the phone. "That's your father?"

_ "He used to be." _

"I'm sorry, but...he's, uh, he's dead now."

Jade let out a small, intrigued chuckle.  _ "Hm, you just might be able to pull this off." _

"What? Pull what off?"

" _ There's something I need you to do, but I can't explain it right now. You may need some sort of keys to do it, but find a way out of the house. I'll be in touch." _

**_Beeeeeeeeeeeep._ **

Casey gently replaced the receiver and looked up to the door residing at the end of the entryway. Hand on her gun, the paranoia that any more of Jade's disturbed family members could appear still fresh, she approached the door. A crest of Cerberus adorned it, but three indentations resided where the mythical dog's three heads should have been.

_ Goddamn it. _

Agitated once again by the elaborate system of triggers in the door, Casey stepped away and started toward the wall opposite of where she had entered. In the nearest corner resided a copper door, embellished with a wreath small spikes and a plaque shaped like a scorpion. She tried the door's handle, but it was held shut by a lock with a square pit surrounded by a light circular indentation.

Next to the door was a grandfather clock. Casey noticed that the pendulum was loose and pulled it off for closer examination. The pointed end was the size of a small key, so she put it in her pocket, hoping it would lead somewhere with the missing pieces of the crest.

Trying to ignore the newspaper lying on the floor, which was emblazoned by the announcement of  **Over 20 Missing In 2 Years,** Casey glanced in through an archway. An unfinished painting hung on the back wall, and a light shined on it from a makeshift projector across the room. At the midpoint of this contraption was an oak podium.

She continued on, not concerned with the new puzzle and picking up a new container of antibiotics from a chair. Finally reaching the lit door on the other side, her heart fluttered.

A metal statue of a soldier sat on a podium next to a flag, holding a shotgun. Casey ran in and carefully lifted the beautiful weapon from its resting place, grateful for the heavier firepower.

**_Creeeeak-chinkchinkchinkchink-CLUNK!_ **

The podium raised through the floor about half a foot, and Casey whipped around to the heavy noise behind her. A vault door had closed her into the room. She stepped to it and, upon finding it locked, dejectedly returned the gun to its place.

Realizing her moment of solace in this room, she pulled out the pendulum key and examined it. On the back, there was a grimy piece of tape with a messy scrawl on it.

**Living Room**

_ There was another clock in the living room,  _ she recollected.  _ That was locked...are they hiding some keys in there? _

She opted to test her theory and power walked back to the iron double doors. Pushing through them, she did a quick glance around the hallway. It was devoid of life- and the thought of even calling her gracious hosts that made Casey snicker lightly- so she trekked on.

Casey took the new shortcut through the destroyed closet and wound around to the living room, fixated on the grandfather clock. There was a small keyhole behind the bare pendulum swing, and she shoved the key in. 

**_Bong! Bong! Bong!_ **

As the clock continued its choked chime seven more times, the old pendulum string retracted upward and a new one took its place. Its end was adorned by a flat metal carving of a white dog's head.

She took the piece of the crest and gingerly stepped back, darting her gaze around to ensure that nobody had sought the sound's source. There was no sign of movement, so she exited through the wrecked dining room and strode back around the winding corridors to the main hall. Seeing nowhere else to search on the bottom level, she rushed to the front door, placed the dog head in the middle indentation, and hurried back to ascend the nearest side of the grand staircase.

At the top of the stairs, Casey was startled by Grandpa, who sat in a dark corner in his wheelchair, staring blankly at her.  _ How…the hell did he get up here? It was probably when I was fighting with Dennis, but...there aren't any wheelchair ramps...did Luke bring you up here or something? _

The confusion flooded her head as she approached the elderly man and peered at his face closer. His complexion was still sickly, which was accentuated by the pale moonlight filtering in from a nearby window. He made no movements, so Casey turned to the door next to him, eager to escape his creepy gaze.

The door opened into a clean, warmly-lit hallway, and she shut the door softly behind her with a sigh of relief.  _ Finally! A normal-looking room!  _ she joyously exclaimed to herself, freed from the clutter of the rest of the house. She ventured forth on her excursion to find the remnants of the crest.

Casey made her way out to an enclosed veranda. The boards beneath her feet were worn, but not rotted, and she could see the front yard through plywood lattice. It wasn't much of a view, save for the wildly overgrown lawn and a white aluminum trailer.  _ That must be where Jade is reaching me from. _

A bright yellow light glinted off of the trailer's frame, and Casey stepped back from the lattice. From behind the presumed safe shelter, Patricia teetered through the tall plants toward the house, carrying a lantern. The girl, her guard back up, tiptoed onward over the veranda, hoping the woman wouldn't hear or see her from below.

At the other end, a few magazines of bullets sat in an open box. Casey huffed quietly, frustrated by the growing lack of room for resources, and reorganized her cargo. Her gun supplies went into her belt loops, the map into her bra strap, and the knife and ointments into her pockets.  _ Should have grabbed Kevin's backpack when you had the chance,  _ she chided herself before turning to an archway, which led back into the house.

The remains of a staircase allowed light to filter into this dark segment of the hall from the downstairs area by the garage. Casey wound through the corridors, visible by this glow and a few scattered lamps, with her knife raised and ready for action. In a short while, she came to a well-kept oak door and curiously pushed it open.

A warm recreational room, sparkling from a chandelier, had awaited her, furnished by a pool table, a bar, an old television, and two other doors. One led in the direction of the veranda, and the other had windows peering into another room. Casey glanced around to make sure it was safe and crept in, approaching the door with the windows. It was decorated with the same scorpion and spikes as the identically locked door in the main hall, but she spotted a cracked shotgun leaning against a window.

_ Now just to find this dumbass scorpion key,  _ she retorted internally as she circled around the room. It wasn't until then that she noticed the VCR tape resting on the bar, picked it up, and read the neat handwriting on the label.

**Stole the camera from Mama when she wasn't looking and saw the footage on it. I hope he's okay.**

A chill ran down Casey's spine, as she knew exactly who this note was talking about. She fully realized it was probably a dark web torture tape, but even so, she needed to see his face again. She walked back around to the TV, popped the tape into the VCR player, and leaned on the bar to watch.

_ A frazzled Kevin, tousled brown hair matted with sweat, stared into the camera. Prominent scars resided on his neck and face, indicating where Casey had wounded him earlier. He anxiously glanced around him, huddled behind a bush. After a few painstakingly long moments, he began to walk, keeping the camera aimed at his face as he spoke between shallow breaths and through welling tears. _

_ "Casey, if you find this...I know I can't expect anything from you...not after what happened. After what I did. But, I just want you to know, that wasn't ME! I don't...God, I don't KNOW what happened!" _

_ "There you are!" someone yelled from behind him. Kevin turned his head and shifted the camera, revealing Patricia standing in the distance, holding her lantern. "You gave us quite a scare, young man!" _

_ In one swift motion, Kevin turned the camera to show his view of a boardwalk and pushed through an iron gate. He started to sprint down the wooden path, panting, "She can't catch me again."  _

_ At the end, he came to a pair of barn doors, bulled through one side, and kicked it shut behind him. He slowly approached a white door to his right, but it drifted closed and its lock clicked. _

_ Kevin turned around to go the other way, revealing a chasm between the ledge leading to an open door on his side and the rest of the room opposite him. He crept up to the door, careful not to get too close to the shattered support pillars. _

_ "Over here, papa!" _

_ A young boy's singsong voice echoed from across the chasm, and Kevin pivoted to look at its source. His figure, outlined by curly locks and baggy sweats, stood hauntingly in the shadows, the only light making him visible streaming from a stairwell behind him. However, the young man took a deep breath and ventured forth, despite being obviously fazed by the child. _

_ The doorway led into a long room, lit by flickering candles and turned into a maze by giant columns of hornet nests. No buzzing sounded from any of them, and Kevin continued onward. Each set of candles he passed blew out, and his racing heartbeat was now audible, even on camera. Eager to get out of that room, he made a few long strides to the opposing door, quickly and quietly passing through and closing it. _

_ Kevin rounded a corner in time for a door at the end of the corridor to creak open. As stealthily as possible, he backpedaled behind a small cabinet and stood flushed to the wall as the lantern light and Patricia's menacing voice drew closer. _

_ "I am growing tired of this bullshit, boy," she calmly proclaimed, her tone dripping with venom. "Why are you putting me through this? WHAT have I done to deserve this except open my home to you?" _

_ Kevin watched fearfully as she opened another door and exited the confined space, pondering, "I don't understand you at all. This! This is a gift!" Once she was gone, he took the opportunity to sprint to the other end and hustle through the door she had entered from. _

_ Rounding a wall of crates, he came into a room equipped similarly to the projector room in the main hall. The only difference was the complex statuette resting on the podium. Kevin reached for the statuette, but his respite didn't last, as he heard Patricia continuing her composed tirade from behind the door. _

_ "This house...it has seen more than you can imagine, and it KNOWS…" _

_ Kevin lightly ran out the archway on the other side onto a small porch and ducked behind the outside wall, gazing in through a broken window. "You just don't understand," Patricia continued, "or is it that you just don't care?" _

_ When she came into view from around the crates, he took a few steps back into the deepest corner of the porch. "I know you and Jade are plotting," she accused her invisible target. "I KNOW you are scheming. You think I don't know what you're planning for that girl, Casey?" _

_ Kevin craned his neck to catch a glimpse of Patricia, who was pacing circles around the room. As she turned back around, he crouched back, staying barely out of her sight. She began to stroll toward the archway, and he whispered a prayer that she wouldn't come over to him.  _

_ The lantern shone onto the long porch and started to head in the opposite direction, and Kevin took his opportunity to act. He tiptoe-ran inside as silently as he could, around the barrier and through the open door. At a hurried tempo, he glided to the doors at the other ends of the corridor, but both were locked, and he had to turn back to that dreaded projector room. _

_ Kevin hid behind the same cupboard as before as Patricia's hushed scolds changed into frustrated shouts. "We open our home!" she spat. "We open our hearts! And what do you do?"  _

_ She exited through the same door as she had the first time around, and Kevin returned to the projector room, firmly closing the door behind him. He lifted the statuette and began to rotate it, shifting it slightly until it made the shadow of a spider on the half-finished painting. A sea of bumps raised through the canvas in the area of the shadow, and a segment of the wall behind the painting silently opened on a hinge. _

_ A narrow passage awaited behind the secret door, and Kevin shimmied through as best as his muscular body could. Within a minute or so, he popped out on the other side of the chasm at the building's entrance. He approached a corner by the opposite wall, but reeled back and crouched behind a crate the second he heard Patricia's continued tirade. _

_ "He loves you. He wants us to be a family, goddamn it." She huffed, and her voice reached a pained scream. "All you have to do is accept his fucking gift!" _

_ Kevin crept around the crate and glimpsed the opening he so desperately desired. Once he knew Patricia was out of his path, he sprinted for the corner. "You're not escaping your share of the blame!" she shrieked at him, but he had already jumped into a crawl space. He tiptoed over the hard-packed mud to a hatch door at the far end, but it forcefully slid shut, and he was trapped in the cluttered cavern, lit only by a dying candle. _

_ Kevin made sure to rotate the camera view, giving a good look around the tiny space. A tarnished crank laid haphazardly on a pile of stones, and a small photograph rested on a deteriorated cardboard box. It depicted a young man with perfectly-coiffed brown hair, wearing a polo and jeans, with a large boat in the background. Next to him stood a young boy with fiery ginger hair and prominent freckles, wearing a navy blue tracksuit. _

_ After what felt like forever, the candle blew out, and Kevin gasped sharply. The camera view was plunged into darkness for a brief period, then cut to a close-up of Patricia's grimacing face. _

_ "Where do you think YOU'RE going?" she asked forcefully, holding Kevin's arms behind his back with little effort. She wrestled him away, the last noises before the video cut out being his pleas for mercy. _

Wiping a stream of tears from her face with her arm, Casey asked, quietly yet with a newfound resolve, "What did they do you, Kevin?" She vowed that she would scour this godforsaken house for Kevin, because the man in the video was the man she loved. Not the maniac that sawed her hand off earlier, but the gentle survivor's soul that left her a video map of another building on the property. The man whose boss had trusted him enough to let him take the executive's beloved son-  _ Hedwig, right? I can hardly remember the story with that…-  _ on a zoo errand overseas.

With one last look around, she saw a book, slightly opened, sitting on the ledge of a cupboard. Casey took note of how the cover was unevenly raised and approached the book. Pulling it open to the middle, she found a blue dog's head crest.

_ These people need to get better at hiding their shit, _ she jested drily, hurrying out of the room toward her next step to freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Kevin is safe! For now...


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey has resolved herself to find Kevin and get out of dodge. However, she learns the hard way that she has no idea what she's messing with...

Casey had waited long enough. While she had turned the volume dial on the television as low as she possibly could, the sorrowful screams from the video may have betrayed her to the rest of the house. She had the crest she needed, and without the scorpion key, she couldn't investigate the adjacent room. 

_What about the way I came? Wasn't there still a door that way?_

As she recalled her darkness-shrouded journey through the winding halls that brought her to her current haven, she vaguely remembered another door near the collapsed stairwell. _How did I pass right by before?_

Gingerly striding over the creaky boards, Casey retraced her steps, finding the worn white door where her hazy memory had suggested it was. With a gentle push, the unlatched door slipped open to a dank, cluttered bathroom. A dingy tub sat in the middle of the yellow-lit room, full of murky water that sloshed with each drip from the permeable ceiling. 

A quick look at the faucet revealed that the drain stopper was closed. Inching toward the tarnished metal, she pushed the plug lever down, and the drain gurgled as the tub's contents spiraled downward. In its stead sat a mass of black grime.

_Wasn't this...on Kevin's driver's license too?_

Before Casey could overthink the substance's qualities, however, a gleam in the center of the tub drew her eye to something infinitely more valuable.

A polished, elaborately abstract statuette glared up at her with its reflected lamp light. While its edges were less rounded and its pillars more prominent, it vaguely resembled the one that Kevin had used in the video to make a picture of a spider.

She thought back to the main hall, remembering the identical projector and recognizing her new path of investigation. With the dog crest slid into the top of her shoe for security and the statuette hooked into a belt loop, she conducted a once-over of the room for any possible resources and turned back to the door.

With her hand on the knob, she turned her wrist, not recognizing until she was shoved back that there had been a hard crank in the opposite direction.

Casey had never wondered what an eviscerated, decaying corpse would look like risen straight out of the ground.

Unfortunately, Dennis's hulking figure before her answered that unasked question well enough. Beyond that, her downward perspective as he lifted her up by the throat revealed the flesh of his half-missing skull shifting, _forming,_ into its old, quasi-human shape.

"Hell of a thing, isn't it?" he chuckled, the inflection in his laugh verging on maniacal territory. "Sure as shit beats dying!"

With that, he threw her at the back wall. Fully expecting the impending impact, Casey reached her left arm behind her to spring back to her feet and prepare to bolt. Though the forceful contact sent a roar of pain through the still-healing forearm, she quickly regained her footing and ran around the side opposite of Dennis's approach.

"My little boy has given us a gift," he howled at his prey, "and this gift is with me always."

Casey sprinted through the door and up the hall to the rec room, all the while hearing the pounding work boots maintaining their distance behind her, too far to thrust a shovel through her torso but just close enough to do so if she lagged even a moment.

Past the billiard table. Onto the veranda. Down the grand staircase. The escape route blurred by, punctuated by the slamming of doors and hammering of footsteps. She gained ground by sliding down half of the banister before booking it to the front door. The sound of Dennis's boots had faded, and she wriggled the crest out of the top of her shoe before forcing it into one of the two remaining slots.

On a catwalk between the two sides of the staircase, Casey's captor prowled, looking every which way for her. She inched along the wall toward the projector room, only stepping into its center when Dennis disappeared back into the corridor she had fled. Now alone, she could set to work with the enigmatic statuette.

A blank space in the shape of a falcon occupied the left side of a painting. Casey rotated the wooden figure in her hands, attempting to angle each detail to match the ruffled feathers. Finally, when the shadow aligned with the image, a series of raised bumps, similar to the spider, rose from the frame, and the wall swung open.

"Who builds this shit?" she whispered to herself, creeping toward the narrow passage revealed by the perplexing wall decoration. Shifting along between the boards was much easier for her than it had been for Kevin, but she still felt suffocated by the walls closing in on her.

_Nothing I haven't seen as a child. I've seen bigger monsters._

_None that chased you with a shovel. None that_ _forced you to eat organs. None that regenerated their flesh. None that-_

Once past the narrow passage, she came out into a passage that was most definitely behind a primary wall. The dilapidated siding had black cobwebs and was barely illuminated by the lighting in the next room.

A gaping hole finally led her into a large den. Compared to the rest of the house, this room was certainly the most human. The regal fireplace and fine leather seating, as dusty as they were, were devoid of the slashes and litter and mold that had characterized her scenery thus far. The taxidermied deer in the corner, which would have been an underwhelming sight to her typical hunter sensibilities, only worsened her feeling of being hunted. 

Some handgun ammo sat in its box on the coffee table, which she collected promptly. And, in the back corner, a door with a dead crow tacked to it sat between two narrow windows into a storage closet. Casey peeked inside, and, in awe and frustration, grumbled some more choice words.

A miniature grenade rifle lay on a stack of boxes across the room. And, without the specialized key that further examination of the crow door revealed was necessary, she had no way to reach it.

The only way to go from here was a rickety white door, and Casey stalked over to it, willing to let her guard down in this graciously abandoned area just a little bit.

 _Too soon,_ she supposed, when she opened the door to a claustrophobic space furnished only by a table, a chair, and a whiteboard lit by a dying hunting lantern.

Casey was hardly an expert on villainous lairs, but she was certain that the evil aura emanating from every corner of the room was well-grounded. Posters that read **MISSING** were tacked all over the wall by the whiteboard, which itself had a sloppy dry-erase drawing of a stick figure boy prancing in a field by a house.

_Looks just like a kid drew it._

The trivial thought skittered away just as quickly as it had blown in, and Casey turned to the door next to the whiteboard. Same white coat of paint, same design, but this one had tendrils of black slime stemming from every crevice. Simply looking at the door dialed the dull sinister roar the current room had planted in her mind up to screeches of horror. She hadn't even realized the tears had welled in her eyes until they were already rolling down her face in unending torrents.

_I...I haven't panicked like this...since...no, not the trial...I never have..._

Any coherent thought she attempted to form was interrupted by the alarm bells in her mind. She almost wanted to shimmy back through the secret passage to the main hall, almost wanted to give in and tell Dennis that his fucked-up family could have her for dinner...

_The video._

_What?_

_The video. You can't give up now. Kevin's likely not even in this building. You have to find him. You may have never felt this sense of foreboding, but you have felt hopeless before. And he helped you through. So let him guide you. Or his memory, if that's what it's come to._

Casey raised her gun and gently pushed the door open. The lantern still lit her view from behind, but it's light was absorbed by the garish sight in front of her.

The same black sludge that coated the inside of the bathtub upstairs sprawled over every inch of the room. A few cracks of light from another door shone somewhere beyond a pillar of God knows what this shit was. She crept forward, shuddering at how the substance squished beneath her feet. The cracks of the door came in view, but the shifting noises of the grime grew louder, more rapid.

And they came from the pillar.

A tendril swung out... _no, an ARM..._ and Casey, breathless from the oppressive atmosphere, could only choke out a small "What the fuck?" before the arm grew into two arms, then a head, then a torso, and finally a full body. She darted for the safely lit room behind her and took aim at... _well, what the hell is it?_

The creature stood at least a foot taller than her, and was perhaps even taller than the prior bane of her existence, Dennis. It had vicious teeth poking out from the vague shape of a mouth, which could only be seen as it let out a vile series of disgusting growls. Its arms and legs were pointed, suggesting visceral spikes at the end.

And it was hurrying toward her.

With the handgun aimed at its general knee area, Casey fired a couple of times before it went down at the threshold between the darkness and her safe room. Now sufficiently maimed, only a couple more bullets were necessary to blow the creature's head off, and she fired them with swift ease before watching the monster writhe on the floor.

The panic in her chest threatening to choke her, she forced herself to return to its domain, knowing her only shot at moving forward would be the door just beyond her reach. She thanked the powers that be for a lack of reinforcements for the monster and pushed out into a hallway.

An ivylike wall of the mold coated a four foot wide strip of the wall directly across from her, but otherwise, the warm lighting of the corridor suggested the sense of safety she so desperately craved. Tiptoeing around miniscule slime tendrils that trailed over the floors, Casey rounded a corner to her left, which presented two routes.

One was a scorpion door, which she was certain led to the great hall. The problem was that she hadn't seen anything resembling a scorpion key in the den.

Or, she could follow the next hallway, which appeared to end in an open area with flickering fluorescent lights. 

It wasn't necessarily an open area so much as it was an open study door next to a set of descending stairs. As she approached, she covered both with the business end of the handgun, knowing that, following the encounter after the den, she truly had no idea what could be lurking around each corner.

Nevertheless, the iron basement door remained firmly shut, and the study exuded warmth in stark contrast to her prior panic attack. Entering the latter, she searched around. Aloe here, bullets there...and a clean hunting cooler, identical to the one in the laundry room.

_Jade. Of course she'd know how to get it here quickly. But...if the front door is locked...how would she get here..._

_Unless she had prepared multiple for each safe room._

Of course she would have to go into the basement. Of course her search for a third key crest wouldn't be as easy as finding the other two had been. Jade really was there to help, and if Casey had to guess, shepherding her to her freedom wasn't a one-time rodeo.

A scrap of paper on a desk confirmed her fears. It seemed to be an instruction sheet, but given the circumstances, it was probably this man Travis's last will and testament to his lover Courtney. In particular, he directed her to find a place called the dissection room. _Lovely._

The cooler held a handful of chemical kits, two with gunpowder and two with aloe. Casey used the materials to mix some more ointment and put together a couple more magazines of bullets. Pleased with her inventory, she snuck back out to the basement stairs and gazed down their harrowing steps.

_Lord knows I'll need all the help I can get._

And one step at a time, her legs carried her fatigued body down to a new gauntlet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh it's the basement...


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey learns that she'll have to up the ante if she wants to escape in one piece. With more inhuman predators stalking her through her prison, the hunt continues- for escape, for assistance, for her...

_Now or never, now or never, now or never now never now never now..._

The thought circled as a vulture in Casey's mind, swooping in for another jab at her resolve with each step down the concrete basement stairs. The fluorescent lights flickering around her reminded her of the darkness of the grimy room prior to this leg of her expedition, and she kept her gun in her right hand as she rested her left on the cold door handle that would take her into what she assumed was another little shop of horrors.

_Now._

She turned the knob, and the door gave way to the basement. Well, one hallway of a basement. _Seriously, who the hell decided to make hallways in the goddamn basement?_

 _Doesn't matter,_ she reprimanded the expanding cloud of fear in her mind. _It's a big house, and I still have ground to cover._

Another step forward, and a sludge pillar similar to the one from the prior room goaded her from the opposing wall. Casey covered it with the barrel of her pistol, awaiting the possibility of one of its thick branches morphing into an arm, but the transformation never came, and she tiptoed past it with cautious ease.

The wall the pillar had balanced itself on moved in two directions, one around a dauntingly dark corner and the other over the sludge- coated stone floor to a rusted vault door. Edging over the squishing surface, she first attempted the latter option. 

_Locked. Why, again, did I expect any different?_

With no other way to go but into the recesses of the house, she returned to her starting point and crept around the corner. Her head throbbed despite the lack of a stench from the slime, and an overarching paranoia that curled within her heart threatened to overtake her senses with each creak from the walls and pipes surrounding her.

Tentacles of slime, which glistened in the scattered and fading lights, lined the walls around her, reminiscent of the ivy that had originally plunged her into the darkness of this estate. A couple more twists through the winding halls took her out a clear wall in her sight.

That is, before a creature, identical to the first, stumbled out and tottered toward her.

Casey had neither time nor ammo to lose. She whipped the handgun from her side and quickly aimed at the beast's knee. A couple of shots, and it crashed to the floor, directly followed by its head exploding from a final gunshot. While she had expected a notable lack of isolation in this tangible underworld, her heart instinctually pounded in her ears.

Gun raised, she pressed forth, past the torso and around the corner from which its owner had approached. A rickety door resided in the back right corner of the corridor, and Casey slowly pushed it open.

The sickly growl was all she needed to hear, and she aimed low. 

_**Bang!**_ Knee gone.

_**Wham!** _

With the door kicked open, she angled her weapon even further down, taking two blasts at the head before its gory- _if it could be called that,_ she pondered- head burst on the floor.

Casey whipped her head around, hastily gathering a panorama of the surrounding..."What the hell kind of room is this?"

While she hadn't intended for the whispered inquiry to escape her lips, she wasn't about to apologize for wondering. She could only describe it as a morgue, with a crusty sink and iron cabinet on one wall and a row of cold steel cremation chambers lining the other.

A yellowed and curling sheet of notebook paper was tacked above the sink, and Casey plucked it away between the tips of her fingers to take a closer look.

**Luke,**

**I caught the guy who keeps trying to escape. I've locked him up in the leftmost incinerator so he can't get away again. Take him out when he's ready.**

**The door's three A's and a handprint. Do what you want with his girl.**

_Guy who keeps trying to escape...guy who...escape..._

Casey's chest heaved, barely restraining sobs, fearing the worst, until she finished her slow pivot to the leftmost incinerator behind her.

**Travis**

_Oh. Travis._

_Dissection room key!_

She knew it was a long shot, but Casey had an inkling that maybe, just maybe, the prior victim had gotten his hands on a key to this enigmatic frontier. Readying her pocket knife to cut through anything she must to gain herself access, she tugged the handle.

Locked.

_Three A's and a handprint...so what the fuck does that mean?_

Every cremation chamber had a similar strip of masking tape with a name scrawled on it adorning its already rusting interior. Except for one near the end of the row. Casey gingerly paced toward it, knife raised for action, and pulled the handle.

**Tamara**

The strip of masking tape, weathered and curled around itself, was positioned at the head end of the incinerator bed.

_Three A's..._

On the chamber door directly to her left, a painted red handprint was messily splattered to her side of the handle, which she carefully wrapped her fingers around and forced outward.

_**Clank-ksssshhhhhhhhhhh...** _

The door housing Travis's body barely popped open, releasing a small cloud of white steam into the dank air above. Casey raised her knife above her head, not trusting the ominous opening one bit.

Sure to form, she was greeted by the slashing of a monstrous claw, which dug into her right forearm before she brought the knife down on the creature's throat. Its misshapen head rolled into the floor, and she hurriedly kicked it out the door to the hallway.

The gash in her arm stung with the intensity of a nice of yellow jackets, and she staggered away to the opposing wall to fumble a bottle of ointment from its hiding place. As she dragged the opening of the squeezed bottle over the wound, the burning sensation brought tears to her eyes, and she prayed the antibiotics in it would be potent enough to rid her body of the substance's toxin. In contrast to the burning of the medication, she felt shivers pervade her body as she imagined the infection spreading.

_No no no no no. Get the crest. Eyes on the prize._

Despite the delirium induced by the thudding pain rippling every which way from each wound, Casey knew she had to get moving. With her arm extended in front of her, she slowly lifted the shoulder of the monster's body with the tip of her blade.

A fluorescent beam reflected off a small key under the creature's back, and Casey hastily retrieved it, opening the ring and putting it on a belt loop.

Retreating to the hall, she rounded another corner and, noticing a half-opened metal shutter ahead, reminded herself to go back for a door she had passed earlier. She wrapped both hands around the tacky green plastic guard on the shutter and heaved backward, compressing its accordion structure with a series of grating squeaks.

A bona fide room revealed itself to her, and a shelf next to her point of entry housed a map entitled **Processing Area.** Without a second thought, she folded it and stowed it with the other map, trekking toward a table in the middle of the table sporting a nondescript meat tied up like a ham with a stick jutting from it's side.

 _Well, not a stick,_ she realized, observing the raised square at its end and the scorpion figure carved into the handle.

_Thank fuck._

Rounding out her search of the room, an alcove hid behind another rack of mystery meat, which she squeezed past while breathing through her mouth to avoid the wretched stench. A slightly propped door hid on the other side, and a small push open showed a small set of descending steps.

_Deeper into the abyss..._

The downward procession goaded her, and if she hadn't been inside, she would have sworn that a breeze seemed to push her in. And so she trudged forth, down the stairs and around a tight corner, which dead-ended at a door with a plywood wreath centering around a carved snake.

"God FUCKING dammit!" Casey spat at the door before giving it a few hard kicks. Rage boiled within her, licks of flames taunted the deepest corners of her vision, and she backtracked up the stairs and through the room. 

A quick glance at the map revealed that an iron door beyond her current position completed the loop around the tangled basement, and she was desperate to see the warm glow of the light. Every second spent in the basement plunged her deeper into a mental pit that she had trouble clawing out of. The mold on the walls suffocated her, and after stumbling to the iron door, Casey clumsily slid the lock open and crawled up the stairs. 

Ugly sobs shook Casey's chest. She had felt helpless when Uncle John would come home on a drunk rampage many times all those years ago. She had felt helpless when the prosecution dragged her name through the mud, calling her every misogynistic slur known to humankind.

But _that..._ That desperation, that pain, threatened to eat her from the inside out. Her brain twisted and turned over itself, leaving her in the stupor of a migraine as she tried to collect her scattered thoughts.

_Scorpion key. Scorpion key scorpion key scorpion key. Scorpion key billiard room old shotgun. Old shotgun new shotgun in hall. Getthenewshotgun-_

Casey blinked in realization.

If she couldn't keep herself in check, then maybe she really had no choice but to force herself into bravery.

_Particularly with some heavier firepower._

A light sprint thought the T-shaped hallway led her to the scorpion door, which she was certain led to the grand hall. Fumbling with the stick key, she finally managed to lot its carved end into the lock and crank it open.

The rusty slide bolts slid free, and the low creak of the door served as a fanfare for the confirmation of Casey's hunch. Light on the balls of her feet, she hurried up the staircase on the side she had explored earlier.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Grandpa's wheelchair missing entirely from the catwalk and balconies.

And another one at the approaching din behind the door.

_**Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.** _

_Company yet again._

Carefully backpedaling down the stairs, Casey's eyes widened when the door flew open and Dennis stalked out, thankfully glowering through the window in the opposite direction from her.

Safely downward and diagonal from him, she hunkered behind the banister.

"Dammit," he muttered, before shouting, "It won't be long until I find you, you little bitch!"

Returning the way he came, he didn't realize that, had he turned around for a split second, he would have had an optimal vantage point on her creeping up the stairs. Casey was eternally grateful for the maniacal man's oblivion, and she gracefully rushed to the door, her gun raised and her body flush to the wall.

"Here I come..."

His taunting voice shot a shiver down her spine, and she crouched before silently pushing the door open just a crack. A look to the left... _nothing._ A glance to the right... _clear._ Continuing in her low position, she inched to the harrowing veranda.

Dennis, at the very end of the walkway, had his back turned to her and his shovel raised. A singular tear escaped from Casey's eye as she peered at him from her hiding place. He made no indication of leaving his position, and she opted instead to enter the rec room through the hallway.

The door was wide open, but the coast was clear. Nevertheless, she stayed low and gently pushed the door closed behind her. With the scorpion key firmly placed in its proper lock, she cranked it, cringing as the rust slide bolts grated through their holders. The door creaked open, and she shimmied through, pressing her back on it to cover her tracks.

The claustrophobic bedroom was a sty, but at least it was one that looked inhabited. Photographs littered the floor, bedsheets were torn and sprawled all over.

And, balanced on the narrow window, was the old shotgun.

Casey eased it down the wall, mindful to not let it clatter on the floor or disturb the other objects balanced in a similarly precarious position, and examined it. _Chamber's cracked, caved inward a bit, and there's an oversized shell keeping it from pumping_ , she noted, _but this is certainly hefty enough to replace the one downstairs._

After poking through some of the drawers, Casey collected a small box of shotgun shells and tucked it in her waistband. Raising her head an inch gave her a decent view over the billiard table.

Dennis prowled just outside, rounding the table and the bar in a lopsided figure-eight. He sauntered to the outside door, Casey reached for the door handle...

_Now!_

Thrusting the door open, she bolted for the hall-side door, trailing her fingers on the doorknob so it would drift shut behind her. Her adrenaline fueled legs carried her, and all was a blur until she reached the well-lit shotgun showcase.

Though the clanging vault door certainly betrayed her, the second racket from placing the substitute gun in the statue's clutches served as a boxing announcer's bell. Loading it from the box of shells, the shotgun in her hand felt more like a pair of angel wings, ready to lift her away from this pit of despair.

 _No sign of Dennis in the hall,_ she observed, running to the scorpion door. _I guess that bastard's not as smart as he seems._

Heavy weaponry in tow, Casey returned to the study, dropped the scorpion key into the cooler, and squared up to the basement stairs yet again.

_You're armed...you're brave...and whatever is making you go crazy down there is going to have to lay it down to get past the bad bitch you are._

Her descent into hell was much easier the second time, and Casey held her shotgun by the butt end with her left hand and aimed her pistol, with its relatively expendable ammo, with her right.

The door she had unlocked in her prior panic made finding the wooden door she had recalled from earlier a hell of a lot easier. What wasn't easier was shoving it open and having the displeasure of seeing a room filled with haphazard bathtubs littered around a thick floor-to-ceiling column of sludge.

Creeping around the pillar, she could hear the distant slimy growls of an approaching creature, and she stood back. _Best to let the fucker come onto MY turf._

Its staggering form rounded the corner and was quickly dispatched by two knee shots and two head shots. She quickly occupied the route it had taken, but the sloppy sound of its formation came from behind her. Whipping around, she defeated the menace's friend in a similar fashion.

_You know? This arrangement's too clumsy._

The handgun went into her back pocket, and the shotgun shifted from its cradle on one shoulder into both of her hands. Casey approached the noisy door from which her enemies had emerged and kicked the door open.

An enormous generator roared at her from the center of the room, but she barely had time to notice its annoyance. Five monsters emerged from scattered points in front of her, and they lined up with claws outstretched.

_**Bang!** _

_One._

_**Bang!** _

_Two._

_**Bang!** _

_Three._

_**Bang!** _

_Four._

_**Bang!** _

_Five! Let's roll!_

Casey sprinted across the room, a sterile steel door luring her forth, when she heard the growl of the sixth. Another box of shells sat opened on a surgical cart at her side, and she hastily reloaded before pivoting back around.

_**Bang!** _

Its head exploded point blank at the end of the barrel.

With no other noises within earshot, Casey lowered the gun, took a deep breath into her dank shirt and turned to the locked door. The key on her belt loop was carefully slid out and firmly pressed into the lock.

Checking her back once more, the box of ammo was tucked into her waistband in place of its empty predecessor. The crest was so close to being hers. However, she had a foreboding intuition that the ease of finding the prior two would be recompensed in this supposed "dissection room."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a lot longer than I expected it to be, but 7 was short so whatever. Have some Casey being a badass motherfucker!


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey is so close to, yet so far away from escape. A battle of wills must test her resolve, so long as she wins in one piece...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For your own safety, do not read while eating! You've been warned. Nevertheless, this is easily my favorite chapter so far.

The door raucously creaked open before her, but once inside the dissection room, Casey was deafened by the silence compared to the rusty generator behind her. A rack of shelves formed a wall before her, and she could vaguely see a human body strung up on the wall in the alcove behind them. 

And, among the crates, a polished red crest in the shape of Cerberus' third head drew her forth.

Gently taking a hand off her shotgun, Casey reached out for the crest. Her fingertips barely brushed its carved form, however, when a hulking, shirtless figure emerged from behind a segment of the wall of shelves.

With that, Dennis slapped a hand down on the crest and dragged it with him, clutching it as he paced and ranted. Casey stepped away, firmly holding her weapon and preparing to snipe through a shelf if necessary.

"I was going to be his father," the man grumbled to himself. "Patricia should have been his mother... But those two damned kids... No, nonononono."

His voice fluctuated between growls and whispers that thinly veiled the ire swelling within him. 

"I will find both of them, and I will make them suffer! Scared, and alone... Just like they are leaving us to be by taking my precious baby boy..." He pointed to the body on the wall, and Casey peered in to find that it was the officer who had nearly rescued her, bloated and enveloped in tendrils of grime. "And you, my friend, will help me."

With that, he exited a rusted door next to the officer's corpse, and Casey backed up, fear threatening to strangle her as tears rolled down her face. Questions raced through her mind at the same rate as her hammering pulse, and she could only vaguely remember the child from the video of Kevin.

_"Over here, papa!"_

Was that what this family was angry at herself and Kevin about? Some kid? _God, this is all so confusing... My head is so cloudy..._

The shelves held a few more shotgun shells, which she fit into the box held tight to her hip, and she turned to her left, finding a taunting flight of stairs. She gently proceeded, remaining on guard for her inevitable encounter with the deadly patriarch.

The stairs opened to a narrow path that snaked around the side of the other room, punctuated on the right with a pair of rusty hydraulic doors. Recognizing her last shot at actual safety, Casey shoved through.

Her breathing shallowed upon witnessing the iron bars on the other side. They boxed in a large square arena, and she mentally began to prepare a will. She would fight like hell with every scrap of energy in her body, but this was officially Dennis's turf.

Sagging stairs made of metal plating led up to an aisle overlooking the arena on its left, and Casey ascended at a snail's pace. Dennis was nowhere in sight, and she followed the catwalk all the way around the caged battleground.

The bright side was that, after an excess of horror-filled searching, the crest was within her grasp.

Nevertheless, this didn't detract from the obvious trap it was placed in.

The hook from a trailer hitch hung from the ceiling by a thick, rusty chain, and, wrapped in barbed wire for security, the crest goaded her to make any sort of movement. Darted glances all around the area behind her revealed nothing, so Casey wasted no time from plucking it away to safety and shoving it in the cup of her bra.

At least, she believed it was safe until the heavy work boot was planted in her spine.

Casey shrieked as she toppled over the edge into the arena. She twisted her frame just enough to catch a glimpse of Dennis, glowering at her from above, marching toward the precipice himself at a tauntingly slow rate.

She had extended her arms enough to prevent any breaks or sprains, but the returned shooting agony in her reattached left hand caused her to drop her gun. Her right hand pushed her body off the floor, and she stood up as straight as she could with her severely bruised back and legs. A quick squat placed the shotgun firmly back in her possession, and the thud of Dennis's boots accented his dreaded arrival for another skirmish in close quarters.

_Not this time. I'm prepared. I'm stronger._

Casey staggered backward and took aim at her assailant.

**_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ **

Three shots straight to the chest, and Dennis kneeled, eviscerated by the force of the gunshots. A swollen growth resembling an overgrown lung protruded from the exit hole of his wound. A fourth shotgun shell was fired into the gory mass, but instead of popping, it retreated, and he stood back up with no signs of pain.

A maniacal chuckle erupted from him, and he turned around to a workbench behind him. As Casey backed away to line up for another shot, the revving of a small engine threw her off-kilter.

_Not this bullshit again._

The man whipped around, hedge trimmer in hand, and revved it twice at her, starting to charge. Casey darted to the left, wanting to take aim but knowing that she was backed into a corner if she did so. She started to bolt away, but she kicked something hard and plastic, prompting her to direct her gaze downward.

_Oh, fuck yeah._

It was slightly smaller than Dennis's weapon of choice, which was almost jostled free from the wall, but it would provide an even match. She let the gun clatter at her feet, lifting and pulled the cord on the heavy-duty chainsaw.

_Now I'M the monster._

Casey sprinted forward, carving a deep gash in his back before jumping back as he whipped around. His hedge trimmer raised, he charged again, and Casey stood her ground.

The two blades ground against each other for an extended period, but the hedge trimmer burnt out. Chainsaw raised above her head, Casey brought her wrath down on the villain before her, cutting a jagged line through his head down the center of his face as he shrieked in agony.

Once again, the gory mass protruded from the severe wound, and she began to cut into it. A single pustule popped, spewing its sloppy insides, before the mass retreated yet again. Dennis slammed the power button on the trimmer with his fist a couple of times before it finally restarted, and he once again stood as if he hadn't nearly exploded, his weapon at the ready.

"That's it, you fucking whore!" he screeched, demonic fervor spilling from his mouth. "I've had enough of you!"

Dennis chased Casey around the cage, neither able enough to land a decent gouge in the other's flesh. As he thrashed about wildly, several racks of shelves and a stone pillar in a corner came crashing down behind him. Despite missing her with the jagged business end of the trimmer each time, he got several solid rams of the aluminum casing against her forearms.

This strategy proved ineffective, as within five hits, the trimmer blade snapped, and Casey brought her own blade down on his head yet again. 

The near-victory from earlier repeated itself. Split skull, inflated organs. Except this time, the stream of gore that gushed from the swollen mass as she cut into it didn't stop.

Eventually, the stench of being so close to rotting flesh overtook Casey's will to watch her tormentor suffer, and she stumbled back, letting the saw slow down and hoping that her gun hadn't been trampled. The man was having a seizure across from her, and she could maim him yet again while he was-

**_Pow!_ **

The mass of organs popped, and blood splattered in every direction. Casey's ears rang from the magnitude of the explosion, and as her sanity slowly returned to her, she gingerly sat up.

Dennis's legs were there, stumbling, but his torso was nowhere to be found. They staggered closer to her, spewing all manner of bodily fluids and maybe more, and Casey swung around to her feet, shrieking in terror and tripping to escape the remnants of her great antagonist.

Two more steps, and the legs fell. Her chainsaw winding down in the middle of the floor and her shotgun stowed in the corner, she pulled the handgun from her back pocket and aimed at the still appendages. A few shallow breaths and a stutter escaped her throat. She wanted to whisper a cowardly croak at the remains, but the force of her heartbeat made anything less than a shout impossible.

"Just fucking stay dead, alright?!"

Casey's knees gave out, her body sinking in on itself in tandem with the realization.

_I just murdered someone. I...I sawed him in HALF..._

She thought her stomach had been devoid of contents, but her body still managed to find something to expel. The bile scorched her throat, and she was forced to clean her mouth with her disgusting shirt.

Her peripheral vision slowly darkened, and she recognized the stress-induced tunnel vision that would immediately follow. The shot gun and chainsaw were both retrieved, and she searched for an exit. A singular prison door with a thick bar across housed a means of exit, and she set to work cutting through the bar with the sawblade.

The bar and blade snapped in unison, and Casey threw the casing of the destroyed tool off to the side. The cage door opened directly to the double doors that had led her into this disaster in the first place, and she stumbled through, desperate to escape this literal embodiment of hell.

No surprise monsters clawed her out of her shocked stupor, though they may have mistaken her blind stagger as one of their own. Casey had lost all sense of any reality outside of placing one foot in front of the other. Finally, she reached the stairs up to the main house, immediately warmed by the glow of a nonfluorescent lamp.

And chilled once again by humming at the top. 

The unusual sound finally sobered Casey, and she gripped the shotgun tighter as she crept upward. The tune sounded like the hook of some R&B or rap song she had heard en route to this horrifying journey, except slowed and pitched down. The voice was frail and choked, and Casey was ready to fire at the first sign of motion.

Ironically enough, the humming dwindled as she neared the top, and a quick peek around the corner revealed...

_Grandpa?_

_How?_

_There's... Luke couldn't possibly be doing this, no matter how quickly his hand regenerated...and why is he humming like that? God, whatever kid was singing this around him must have been incessant about it..._

Casey stood and examined the body in the wheelchair for a few minutes, grateful that his face was angled away from her judgmental eye. She tiptoed around him, and his eyes met hers before the same half-assed head movements from dinner resumed.

With a shudder, she accepted that she had larger issues than this senile elderly man, and strode to the scorpion door. Casey nearly gave the door a gentle push open...

And the humming continued, louder than before.

A few steps backtracked, Casey slowly peered around the corner and nearly launched herself out of her skin at what she discovered.

Grandpa was gone, wheelchair and all.

_You were in that dank basement with some weird-ass slime mold for a solid hour before the tunnel vision even set in. It's fine. You hallucinated. Don't worry about hallucinating here, you're doing great..._

_I have to stop then. Distinguish the real from the fake. I can't lose my grip now._

The scorpion door led out to the main hall as before, and Casey raced to the front door. Removing the crest from her bra, she embedded it securely in the remaining slot.

_**Creakcreakcreakcreak-CLANG!** _

The door popped open by itself, allowing the moonlight to stream in.

Casey took a single step outside. A rickety white porch held her off of the soft bayou mud, a trail lined by large trees funneled and filtered the piercing starlight as it skittered over the fern canopy on the lawn, and the small trailer drew her gaze with its warm golden lantern. Not a soul accompanied her in viewing this scene; no family members, no monsters. Just herself in the sticky bayou humidity enjoying a fleeting shred of the real world.

As she left the porch, puddles from a storm she vaguely recalled earlier in the night sloshed around her feet. Wind whipped through the trees, crickets told their campfire stories, and bullfrogs croaked from a distance. She finally reached the trailer door, and, holding the shotgun in one hand, cautiously pulled the handle.

The most notable change from the outside was that, rather than a warm and oppressive wind, a cool breeze emanated from a fan on a small shelf. Signs of life were scattered about the small home in the fashion of organized chaos. As orderly as the den had been, this trailer showed signs of genuinely human life.

_Too bad nobody's here._

Another VCR television resided on a kitchen counter by a well-sanitized miniature refrigerator, accented with a sheet of paper reading **Take what you need but leave me some** , while a storage cooler sat by a tightly-made cot. _Maybe she's left more gifts inside..._

Casey reaped a couple of beneficial tools from the box. The first was a strap for her shotgun, which she welcomed as a means of transporting the clumsy weapon.

The second was an anesthetic syringe, flourished with a neatly-printed sticky note.

**Will help your hand, as well as any other wounds**

Almost shamefully quickly, Casey jabbed the anesthetic into a vein in her left arm, welcoming the bliss that washed over her body. The bruises from her final battle with Dennis had started to roar, and the amateur prosthetic job certainly wasn't helping the matter.

She trudged back over to the refrigerator and pulled out a ham and cheese half-sandwich before dropping her weight onto the dining seat. Food, _real_ food, something to make up for all of the vomiting and forced cannibalism.

_**Ringringringringring!** _

Casey inhaled the last bite of the sandwich before approaching the phone, which was perched next to the fan. The incoming call light flashed a familiar orange, and she lifted the receiver.

 _"You made it."_ A pensive pause. _"You're the first I've ever seen make it this far."_

Casey sighed, prepared to cut the bullshit games. "So what is it you need me to do? Is it going to help me and Kevin get out of here?"

Jade's tone gained a serious edge. _"Yes. Now listen carefully Casey. My family and I...our bodies are contaminated."_ Her voice cracked, barely holding back a light sob. " _I can't leave the property unless I get it out. Same goes for Kevin."_

"Is there even a way to get it out?"

" _We need the serum. It should clear whatever this shit is out of the body. As long as you're not too far gone."_

Casey resigned herself to the idea of this nostrum with a heavy sigh. "Alright. So where is it?"

_"If I knew where one was, I'd already be long gone. But...I have a feeling my mother has hidden some inside the old house somewhere."_

"So if we get this thing..." Casey's voice started to crack. "...I can save Kevin and we can get out of here?"

" _Right...and so can I. The old house is near the water. You can't miss it."_ A dejected sigh. _"I just hope you can handle my mother."_

"Your mother?"

_"Be careful. They'll be looking for ya."_

**_Beeeeeeeeeeeep._ **

_They?_

Casey replaced the handset and ran her hands over her scalp in frustration. She wanted to save Kevin, the Kevin she saw in the video, but...

_...would he be too far gone?_

_Only one way to find out. Try._

Lifting a spare hair tie from a dresser shelf, Casey tied her hair, grimy and turgid from the series of previous fights, into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. Pistol and knife in back pockets, shotgun on back, ammo in waistband and ointment in belt loops, she was ready to challenge the next mob of family monsters.

_Don't worry Kevin. I WILL get us out of here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of like to think the tune was a creepy slow Nightcore version of God's Plan. That's just my take, though.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey has escaped the main house and Dennis's constant lurking. However, she is now confronted with finding a serum that will help her escape, as well as the ever-present dangers of Patricia and Luke...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't like bugs, good luck. But hey, nothing worse than we've seen before, amiright?

**_Creeeaaak..._ **

A glance to the left, then to the right, and no sign of anyone or anything. Casey shifted the shoulder strap on her shotgun to prevent it from digging into her neck, patted her pockets to ensure her supplies were still present, and gently descended the trailer stairs. 

The mud squished beneath her feet as she took careful strides through the overgrown lawn. Chirping cicadas carried over a wide trail nearby, and she ventured in their direction.

_Near the water. Can't miss it._

Leaves drifted to the ground around her, and the trail meandered around a couple of willow trees. The landscape started to bring back a memory from earlier in the evening... _didn't I already come this way?_

Casey found herself in a clearing facing an iron gate. Moonbeams glowered between some bars and emphasized the rising mist beyond them elsewhere. She eased the gate open, cringing as the friction caused it to groan.

_The bridge._

A long wooden footbridge lay beyond the wooden platform she proceeded onto. As it wound before her in several crooked curves, the rickety canopy over its walkway narrowed the route before her into a glaring eye.

_This was the way Kevin came in the video...I'm in deep shit now..._

Casey crept over the daunting causeway and kept close to the railing of the bridge. Chainlink fencing covered the open areas that overlooked the enshrouded bayou below, and several objects that her eyes attempted to convince her were plastic baby dolls gleamed in the moonlight from where they had been ziptied to various links in the fencing. Flickering candles resided on copper trays on either side of her when she reached her point of exit, but their dim light was supplemented by a bright white porch lantern hanging next to a pair of dilapidated doors. Careful, as always, she pushed one door open.

**_FpbpbpPBPBPBPBPBpbpb..._ **

A large bug roared past the small crack in the door, and Casey jumped back. Within a second, it returned to size her up from behind the opening, just small enough that its large body couldn't fit through. She wanted to believe it was a mosquito, but the proboscis seemed too jagged, and its body was the size of her fist. She pulled her pistol from her back pocket and shot its body, wincing as its innards created a visible explosion.

She proceeded to tiptoe up to the door and gently push it open. No more insects flew at her, but a large white hive occupied a two foot wide circle on the ceiling. Similar hives, albeit smaller ones, were scattered on the walls and floor of the foyer before her. Papers lay in a scattered heap to her right.

_Find a serum._

Jade's instructions echoed in her head, and she reminded herself that it would no longer be enough to shoot and run. Kevin was here, so long as nothing had occurred between the video tape and now, and she had a fighting chance at saving him.

Casey leaned down and sifted through the sheets on the floor, keeping her handgun pulled in case anyone cared to pay a visit. Most of it seemed to consist of faded children's drawings and newspapers, except for one parchment poster with a detailed diagram drawn on it with painstaking accuracy.

**FLAMETHROWER**

_Wouldn't that be great, just let this shithole burn..._

The instructions explained the process for building a flamethrower with household objects, and while it seemed unlikely that she would want or need such a weapon, she slid the paper into a pocket for good measure. 

Turning away from the scattered writings, Casey was met with a large open area in the room. At least, it had been an open area at one point, she assumed. A deep chasm lay ahead of her, its maw opening at the sky with teeth of jagged boards. Water from the bayou ran through it, glistening in lamplight from the other side, where several lanterns sat among plywood crates and a small chandelier hung over a short flight of stairs and a door with a crow tacked to it. She followed the small ledge that Kevin had fled over and let its punctuating, slightly ajar door creak open against her weight.

Another hallway. A hive, about three times the size of the main one she had passed already, was mounted on the wall before her, as well as a haunting message painted in blood.

**SHE'S UPSTAIRS**

**DON'T GO UP**

A large, bloody smear translucently covered the word **DON'T,** and Casey brought a hand to her mouth to contain a terrified whimper. Her grip on the handgun tightened as she thought about who might have left her the warning. If it was Kevin, that means he may have escaped to write it...but then he must have been bloody, and Casey didn't want to explore that possibility for fear of mentally shutting down. Jade might have left it, but she seemed to be alive and well, and Casey was unsure of whose blood it could be in that case.

Either way, she couldn't let this keep her from searching the lower level for the serum she desperately needed. 

Rotating further to the right, she was met by a hive that extended in a pillar from floor to ceiling guarded by two more of the mutated bugs. Not wanting to waste ammunition, she sprinted past and slammed the door behind her, leaving her in a narrow corridor with a cupboard, a door to her right, and an extended hall to her left.

_The projector room. This was where Kevin crossed the gap._

Casey opted for the leftward route, which ended at a greasy door with peeling paint. Opening it revealed the familiar wall of crates and the brilliant white light of the projector on the barren spider painting's canvas. Her disappointment deepened when, upon rounding the makeshift barrier, she discovered that the necessary statuette had been removed.

The same old double doors led out to the same condemned porch, but a slight glint caught her eye from a trashcan on her left. A metal rod with some kind of can holder sat upright on a garbage bag, and she nearly wrote it off as some kind of redneck contraption until she noticed a handle and a valve trigger.

_So this flamethrower is REAL?_

Casey picked up the grip and raised her head, noticing a lit room ahead that Kevin must not have seen when he briefly escaped Patricia earlier. She strode toward it like a moth to a flame, only slowing her pace for a few mossy boards that bridged the outside extension of the chasm.

The beacon was housed inside a small study, similar in size to the one in the main house but far more decrepit, as evidenced by the patchwork of holes in the roof. Nevertheless, one modern sight on the desk caused Casey's heart to flutter in whatever could be described as joy in this hellish place.

She reached out for the backpack and tugged it toward her, its uneven weight revealing that the surprise was not without gifts of its own. Not trusting the chair for one minute, Casey checked her back, found nobody stalking behind her, and kneeled to take a look at what Jade, if she had to take a guess on who had arranged such a welcome necessity, had granted her this time.

Inside, a couple boxes of shotgun shells sat at the bottom, and bottles of ointment provided the promise of more relief from the stinging wounds that enveloped her. However, a more curious sight was the aerosol cans strapped to the side.

 _For_ _the flamethrower? Is this a sign that I may actually be able to use this thing?_

_No point in waiting to find out._

Seizing the opportunity to ease her burdens, Casey rearranged her inventory. _All medical supplies in the front pocket, ammo at the bottom of the bag except for one reload worth, which should go...here's an outside pocket here, and the aerosol cans can go inside with the grip until I find the other half of the flamethrower...maps in the small middle pocket, pistol and knife in back pant pockets, rifle slung over shoulder._

Comfortable in the fact that she could easily grab what she needed without fumbling too much from her overly full pockets, Casey was ready to return to her quest for this esoteric serum. She retraced her steps, over the porch, past the projector, and around the crates. The other door lay at the end of this hall, goading her to search its dank recesses.

_**Crash! FpbpbpPBPBPBPBPBPB...** _

A mutant insect darted through the window, not even slowing the flutter of its wings as it shattered the glass, and another quickly joined it. Without a second thought, Casey pulled out her knife and squared up to it. The abomination charged, but she slashed at it, slicing its body before its companion followed it kamikaze-style. With both of their thoraces eviscerated, the giant bugs fell to the floor.

The door led into the remains of a kitchen, marked only by a half-empty box of bullets and a pouch of aloe on the counter, a metal cabinet covered in spiders, and a glass outside door. Stowing her new commodities, she pressed forth.

Another narrow causeway lie in wait for her beyond the door, leading out to a shed on a worn wooden platform. A branching path led out to a different pavilion with barn doors and an open space peeking out over the log walls, but both a buzzing hive and the lack of a bridge prevented her from proceeding toward it, so she continued toward the shed.

Inside, she was greeted by disarrayed shelves and a workbench with a narrow metal piece in its center. A couple of steps closer, and the glow of a moth lamp outside brought its shape into view.

_A nozzle with a lighter attached to it._

Casey swung her backpack around to her front and set it on the table. Hastily, she unzipped the main and middle pockets, pulling out the instruction sheet, grip, and an aerosol can. With the nozzle twisted on, the lighter flicked, and the can firmly in its holder, she stepped back to admire her haphazard work.

_Now to see if it actually works._

She rushed as quietly as she could to the junction between the two outer buildings and took aim at the hive. A couple of bugs seemed to come alive as she approached, but it was too late for them.

The stream of fire roared forth from the flamethrower, and Casey's eyes began to twinkle at the carnage it made from the scorching hive.

The power of this weapon terrified her, especially considering that she could just set fire to the buildings and flee with her own life. _Considering that I WANT to do just that._

As much as she wanted to save Kevin, she knew deep down that there was still a chance that the version of him that had sawed her hand off and stabbed her multiple times would emerge again. She didn't want to take that chance, unleashing him into normal society.

Then there was the matter of the serum. Casey was certain that at least part of Jade's story was complete bullshit. These people were certainly infected- healthy people don't live unaffected by black sludge or regenerate limbs on their own- but for all she knew, this cryptic girl who only communicated through phone calls and trails of presents could be leading her on a wild goose chase. 

But if she gained nothing else from helping Kevin and Jade escape, she could at least ask him _why._

_Why are you infected?_

_Why are you here?_

_Why did you disappear?_

Of course, just like every other time she tried to think of a rational possibility for why she was stuck in this horrific predicament in the first place, something awaited her on the other side of the door. A loud collection of buzzes faded in and out, and Casey readied her flamethrower.

_Not a goddamn moment of peace and quiet to be seen._

Nudging the door open agitated the swarm, and the cloud of insects buzzed around her face as she let out several brief shrieks and batted them away with the nozzle. A couple flew too close to the flame and dropped to the floor as small bundles of ash, but once she was far enough away to not torch herself to death along with the pests, she shot a small cloud of flames at the bugs before retracting the fire.

The next room served as a hallway by virtue of the number and magnitude of the hives. Anytime one of the hive's residents was agitated, enough fire was let loose to quell them permanently, but not so much that she took the room with her. Reaching the other end of the infested passage, she swapped canisters before pushing the door open.

Back at the chasm. Past the bloody scrawls. Making a mental note about the loop of the building, she scorched the hive that she darted past before and took some of the solace to apply ointment to a couple of cuts that the bugs' sharp wings had sliced onto her face and arms. 

_There's no way to get across...I HAD to have missed something._

Retracing her steps back through the foyer, Casey found herself in the hall of hives when she noticed the fluorescent light filtering from waist-level down on the opposite end of the room. She shuffled in a crouched position to the entryway and stood up once she had clearance.

Here was a descending concrete staircase in a dank stone basement. Other than the occasional piece of litter on the floor, the area seemed too clandestine to belong to the shambles above her. A white wooden door lured her at the bottom, and she used her elbow to carefully gain access.

The small chamber behind it was lit only by candlelight, but an intricately-sculpted statuette sat In plain sight on a desk. She reached out for it...

"Casey?"

As soft as the low voice was, it nearly startled Casey to death. She quickly pivoted ninety degrees to the right and saw a wall made of chainmail.

And behind it, Kevin stared at her incredulously, his hands resting on the links that divided them.

Casey set the flamethrower on the floor and staggered to him. Tears welled in her eyes at the sight of him. Filthy, exhausted, panicked...but alive. And _human._

"K-Kev..." 

The sobs couldn't be contained even if her diaphragm had been surgically tied in place. They stared into each other's eyes, stormy with fear and desperation. Casey slowly brought a shaky hand up to where Kevin had placed his and wrapped her thin fingers over his strong knuckles. The contact was warm, soothing, and she brought her thumb up and ran it over his. He leaned his head against the chainmail, and she suddenly wished that she had thought to look for bolt cutters while she was in the garage.

This couldn't last forever. She knew that. But this moment reminded her of all the time she had lost with him. She had planned to burn the good memories with the bad after he attacked her in the guest house, but there was no way she could have ever followed through. Every moment since his disappearance had incapacitated her, and it should have been clear to her from the moment she decided to follow his cryptic email.

She loved him.

And because of that, she had to know.

"Kevin, baby," she spoke up hoarsely, "please, I need some answers."

"I know," he whimpered, burning tears streaming down his face, nodding with his head held in shame. "I know, you're right, and I should have told you, but...but everything is so hazy, and there's so many scraps missing, just gone..."

Neither even noticed Luke come into Kevin's side of the room, but the former snatched the latter by the shoulders and immediately put him in a chokehold.

"No!" Casey screeched as she tugged at the fencing in a futile effort to break through. Kevin arched his back to wrestle himself away from his attacker, but Luke was far too powerful and kicked the back of his knees, causing him to drop to the floor.

"Excuse us for a minute," the assailant's thickly-accented voice commanded her with hidden venom. He then pitched his tone up to a feminine lilt. "'Kev' and I have to have a little chit-chat." He dragged Kevin back to an open door, reached for the knob, and stared her dead in the eyes.

"Come on! Come get him! Unless you're too scared to!"

Kevin tried to wrestle away from the strong man once more, but the effort was useless. Before the door slammed shut, he yelled for his beloved, but she could only stand there in helpless horror as she lost sight of him.

And now, as she turned back to retrieve the statuette on the desk, the only thing she could feel was pure, unadulterated rage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some tenderness with a side of punishment. To be fair, it had to happen, but I especially needed soft couple stuff after that last fight scene.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing her wild goose chase for the man she loves, Casey finds herself scouring for a miracle cure. However, this puts her on the radar of an especially terrifying family member...

Cramming the statuette in the bottom of her backpack and retrieving the flamethrower from the floor, Casey stalked her way back out of the small study. As she hurried her ascent to the hall of hives, the lingering sensation on her fingertips began to fade. She tried her hardest to hold onto the paradoxical softness of his rough hands under hers, but their moment of reprieve had been far too short, and the relief of seeing him again dropped away like candle wax.

_I don't need this goddamn serum. I can grab him, get out of here, and we can go to a hospital or something. I didn't technically promise to find this thing..._

She huffed as she approached the door that would lead into the abandoned kitchen. _Jade still needs my help. And I don't know where Kevin was dragged to this time._

Casey turned the doorknob, but her passage was inexplicably blocked. However, a few more rough shoves revealed exactly what was in her path.

"Stay out!"

The dramatic pause between the shouted words provided enough time for Patricia to glower at her through the narrow opening and slam the door. A swarm of chirps erupted from inside its rotten wood, and before long a horde of spiders crawled out of the chewed holes. Some leapt at Casey, which she flailed away with small squeals of disgust. The rest coated the door. She backed up and aimed her flamethrower at the swarm, scorching the arachnids as the door started to smoke from its dampness.

She kicked the door open and inched toward the corridor that would lead her to the projector room. Her passage across the chasm was almost in sight.

Nevertheless, Patricia stood in her way, staggering toward the room in question with a swaying lantern in her hand.

_Now or never._

Fully realizing just how redundant the idea was, Casey shifted the flamethrower to her left arm and pulled her handgun from her back pocket, took a trembling aim at the woman's turned head...

_**Bang!** _

Patricia stumbled for only a second, but this was followed by maniacal cackling. As she whipped around and hastened toward the girl, Casey bolted back to the hives, trailed by the sound of the women's screeched threats.

"I've got you now, you conniving little bitch!"

Her sprint led her through the foyer, past the chasm, and into the hall where Patricia had chased her from. After easing the door to the kitchen shut, Casey directed her attention to the projector room and hurried through the door.

Around the crates and up to the podium she went. She snuffed out the lighter on the flamethrower and set it down before wrestling with her bag. After yanking the statuette from its main pocket and replacing the cargo that flew out with it, she collected her items and held the figure up to the light. 

With its spider shape much more prominent than the eagle had been, it was only ten seconds before the shadow aligned with the outline on the painting. The bumps raised through the canvas, and the wall segment slowly swung open with a low groan. Setting the statuette on the podium, Casey let the backpack drift down her arm and angled herself sideways so she could squeeze through the space in the wall. Everything went smoothly until about halfway across.

Unfortunately, that was when the centipedes started to squirm out of the walls.

"Ah, fuck! Fuck, oh my God!" she exclaimed in disgust, trying not to let her frustration rise above a whisper but ultimately failing at containing her volume. Several of the bugs fell onto her head, which she whipped from side to side as best as she could without ramming into the support beams enclosing her.

She finally emerged in an alcove on the other side and stepped out to the platform littered with crates where Kevin had nearly been caught in the video tape. Casey rounded the corner of one of the walls and ascended to the lamplit door, still decorated by the corpse of a crow. A note was tacked to the door frame. 

**You angered Hedwig, you're no daughter to me. If you come near my altar, I'll slice off your chest and serve it as pot roast.**

Casey shuddered in horror, believing that the threat was directed at Jade but honestly unsure. _And that name, Hedwig...but that was Kevin's boss's son's name, the one he was asked to babysit...did he somehow go crazy here, too? Is that even possible for a child?_

With the way up firmly locked, she had no choice but to turn back. She approached a pulley system next to the chasm and found a pivot point with a pinhole. Gazing down into the abyss, she could see five wooden planks tied together in a bridge attached to a rope angled down from her side.

_There has to be some kind of crank...wait a minute..._

Casey slowly pivoted in place, her heart pounding in her ears as a new memory from the video resurfaced.

_The crawl space._

A new candle lay lit beyond the mouth of the daunting entrance. She recalled the presence of a crank down there, which Kevin had so helpfully panned to, but she also remembered how he had been trapped at a dead end. How Patricia had wrestled him away without hesitation. She would be cornered if she dared venture down there.

_But without that bridge, the predicament is no different._

She set the flamethrower by the pulley, hopped down, and remained crouched as she followed the winding path, unnerved by the eerie glow of the relit candles that guided her. Cockroaches skittered in the mud all around her, and she stomped each one that came underfoot. 

And, at the end of the tunnel, the single inch of metal on the desired crank that hadn't been rusted over glinted at her.

She collected the tool and started her return trek to the entrance. One of the large mutant bugs that had attacked her earlier guarded her way up, but she quickly slashed it with the pocket knife and stood up once her head was clear.

Casey collected her weapon from the floor and slid the crank into position. With all of her dwindling might, she heaved to rotate the flaking handle on its pivot point.

The noise of the bridge as it rose from the water grated at her ears, and she was certain that Patricia knew where she was now. 

_The pavilion. That had a bridge, too. Maybe that's where the crow key is!_

Following a quick break to allow her strained breathing to return to normal, she put the hefty crank in her backpack, readjusted it on her shoulder, and moved onward, clutching the flamethrower and pulling the shotgun strapped to her shoulder tighter. She was led back through the familiar circuit of the hives and the kitchen door, which she quickly threw open.

Only to be met by Patricia, who started to howl with laughter as the women made eye contact.

She darted back around the room's central hive and slowly backed into the foyer door. The buzz of a swarm grew from where she glimpsed the lantern. It drew closer and closer, creaking as it swung. 

And Casey ran out, opting to run back over the ledge by the chasm. She bolted past the bloody writing on the wall, deriding its inaccuracy on how Patricia had been upstairs, and finally exhaled as she reached the other kitchen door.

Which revealed, upon being pushed open, that her dreaded enemy had turned around and was now pursuing her again.

_Outsmart her. No more of this back and forth bullshit._

Casey ran back down part of the hallway, waiting for Patricia to emerge from the kitchen. When the insane woman finally rounded the corner and glared at the girl with murder definitively on her mind, Casey bolted; through the room, over the ledge, across the foyer, past the hives.

Gently pushing the kitchen door open yet again, she found the room devoid of its horrifying inhabitant and took a deep breath. She could now exit through the glass porch door in peace.

Finding herself at the T-junction between the outer buildings, a few mutant insects fluttered up from their posts around the crank pulley and darted toward her. She hastily pulled the flamethrower and opened fire until they fell to the ground as ash. She then took the resulting respite to close the house door behind her, replace the aerosol can, and pull the crank out of her backpack.

_**Crrrrrchk, Crrrrrrrrrchk, Crrrrrrrrrrrrrchk, Clang!** _

A similar bridge arose from the bayou below, and she reclaimed the crank yet again, returning it to her storage. The pavilion at the end lay in her sights, and she strode up to its vault door with every scrap of courage within her at the forefront. 

_**Creeeeeeeak...** _

She pushed her shoulder against the door, and it slowly opened against her weight. The pavilion seemed to be an outhouse, filled with scraps of paper waste and furnished with a stack of antibiotics that Casey quickly claimed for herself.

_Oh, and the out-of-place treasure chest in the corner._

Lifting its lid revealed the crow key, which she collected and slid in her pocket. She now had everything she needed to go upstairs and investigate this cryptic serum further.

_She's upstairs. Don't go up._

A near-paralyzing chill tore up Casey's spine. As much as she needed the key, she knew she had made a grave error in letting Patricia out of earshot. The woman could be lurking around any corner now, waiting to pounce on her and add her to the recipe book. 

_Don't freeze, you're so close, remember Kevin, you have to find him, you have to save him, you need to hold him close again..._

Warmth ran over the nerves in her hand once again as she gripped onto the memory of holding his hand, all of his humanity about him as they laid their emotions, fear and confusion and remorse, bare before each other. She sprinted back to the glass door and threw it open before darting across the kitchen. In her peripheral vision, she saw the lantern light from the corridor, but she fled before the matriarch so much as saw her.

Casey's hustle took her back through the foyer and over the rickety bridge, the secrets of the crow door now within her grasp. Kicking her knees up as she climbed the steps, she reached into her pocket for the necessary key.

_"I told you to stay out of here!"_

Patricia screamed the declaration at her as she leapt from an alcove by the door. With a white-knuckle grip on Casey's forearm, she tossed the younger girl like a ragdoll down the stairs before staggering forth.

**_Crack, creeeeeeak, snap, crack..._ **

_Oh God, fuck, please, no no nonononono-_

The rotten boards in the middle of the room caved beneath Casey, and strands of hair fluttered by her face as she fell into the abyss.

The woman stood above her, the lantern reflecting off of the caverns that held her eyes, and Casey swung her shotgun off her shoulder. 

"Alright, you little whore!" Patricia screamed down at her. "Let's get-"

_**Bang!** _

The woman staggered back from the force of the gunshot, her forehead now a bloody catastrophe. She continued toward the hole in the floor, and a mutant bug flew out from behind her before darting down into the pit as its commander yelled, "Not nice, cher!"

_**Bang!** _

The next gunshot obliterated the insect's body with little effort, allowing it to land in Patricia's jaw. The woman fell to her knees, before toppling into the pit, and Casey jumped out of the way. The lantern clattered a foot from her body, and the crazed woman dragged her body over it, whimpering to herself.

"It's mine...my light, it's mine..."

Casey kept her shotgun trained on the woman, but black sludge sprang forth from the ground around her, and she had no time to lose. A ladder lay precariously balanced against the wall of the pit, and she planted her feet two and three rungs up, leaning her weight toward the wall to prevent the ladder from falling. 

Finally emerging into the world above, she dusted herself off, readjusted her straps and mildly dislocated shoulder, and turned to look down at the pit. What looked like a pool of water at the bottom, she knew, was actually the slime that had formed the monsters from the basement. Patricia was nowhere to be found, and Casey exhaled as she rubbed her increasingly bruised spine.

With that, she turned around and started toward the crow door, anxious to discover the next piece of the puzzle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry if this felt like filler, I hope I made it interesting enough to keep you hooked!


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey draws ever closer to finding the cure for Kevin. However, one terrifying family member stands in her way...

Retrieving the necessary key from her pocket, Casey crept up the stairs to the gruesomely decorated door. She shot a quick glance at the rightward alcove, but nobody waited to jump out at her again. _Thank God. I can hardly breathe as is._

**_Clunk! Ck-ck-ck-clang! Creeeeeak..._ **

The thick slide bolts popped out of their positions in the door frame, and the door swung slightly open on its own. She returned the key to her pocket and, careful not to touch the adorning crow, guided the door open the rest of the way.

And then immediately wished she hadn't.

Dozens of baby dolls, just like the ones that were tied to the bridge to this very house, hung from the ceiling on miniature nooses. These condemned plastic beings were accompanied by an array of other dolls, primarily porcelain but with some voodoo figures mixed in, all in a similar state. Dangling from above in a haphazard chandelier, they surrounded a small wooden table with a eucalyptus-printed cloth and a bulky black briefcase. The adjacent shelves held several candles in tiny tin trays, their dancing flames glinting off the case's rim.

_**Beep-beep! Clunk...** _

"What the..." escaped Casey's lips as she slowly tiptoed up to the case, which she was certain had caused the small noises. Lifting her left wrist to look at the smartwatch only unnerved her more.

**TARGET ACQUIRED**

This planted more questions in Casey's mind than any other of the night's developments. Something sinister, something deliberate, was happening on this property. 

_They must have been experimenting with something...good God, are those mold creatures and giant bugs test subjects? Was...was Kevin..._

She didn't want the damning thought to cross her mind. Either of them. And yet, they did anyway.

_Was Kevin experimented on? Or was he in on this?_

Her racing thoughts were paralleled by the creak of the briefcase as she pulled the lid open. Some semblance of sanity clawed at her ego, disappointed at how indifferent her reaction to the contents was. However, she felt numb.

_Almost as numb as this little guy._

A corpse, the size and shape of a fetus, was tethered to the inside of the case. The body had been mummified and bound. A gauge to its right was cracked, and any label for what purpose it served had been worn or scratched away. In the lid of the case, a weathered sheet of paper was scrawled with a list of instructions.

**Regarding the -Series Serum**

**the following items**

**be able synthesize serum**

**1\. G-Series cranial nerve**

**2\. G-Series peripheral nerve**

**_Ringringringringringringring!_ **

The shudder at the juxtaposition between the dilapidated house around her and the professional equipment before her combined with her surprise at the noise. A jolt of terror shot up her spine as she whipped around, and despite seeing the familiar landline phone's incoming call beacon blinking at her from an armoire by the door, she was hardly soothed. Ever so carefully, Casey crept forth and lifted the receiver.

_"Well? Did you find a serum?"_

Casey huffed. "I just got done dealing with your mom and her fucking bugs. Wish you could have warned me."

Jade barely contained a chuckle, and this only exacerbated Casey's frustration at the girl on the other side. 

_"Sorry 'bout that. My question still stands, though."_

"Haven't found any. But, I think I found what we need to find and create one. A G-Series head and arm." She sighed, confused by the whole affair. "This can't be right..."

 _"A head?"_ She hesitated for a moment in thought. " _I think I have that around here somewhere..."_

For certainly not the first or last time that night, Casey was dumbfounded by her informant's resources. "You do?"

_"I don't know about the arm, though. Have you searched the whole house?"_

"No, not yet. I still need to check upstairs here." 

_"Great. Meet me at the trailer if you find it."_

**_Beeeeeeeeeeeeep._ **

Receiver now replaced, Casey sighed as she gripped the handgun in her back pocket.

_Jade's probably in on this, too._

Was that true? Probably. Was Jade her only guide through this maze of horrors? Absolutely. So, she turned to her left and followed an open hallway to a set of four stairs, which led up to a platform separated by a handcrafted balustrade. Every step caused the building to groan, and the nighttime breeze moaned through the trees outside.

A candlelit room sat off to Casey's left upon mounting the platform, which she took to investigating. Inside was a couple of aerosol cans on a wingback chair, which she collected promptly.

And, on a desk next to the chair, two pages of a journal lay open, which she lifted to read.

**October 11th - My ears haven't stopped ringing since the child showed up. Jade is right, something is off about him and the man he brought with him.**

**October 15th - I'm seeing and hearing things. Dr. Price gave me an X-ray, but the results were weird. She'll call me back in a few days.**

**October 23rd - The child gave me a present.**

**I think I'll put it in the little hidden room at the top of the old house. This arm is a symbol of our friendship. If anybody touches it**

The writing started to smear and ended midway through the last sentence. Casey didn't need nor want to imagine the consequences, as Dennis's reaction to her search for the key crests had been evidence enough as to what the family was capable of. 

_Top of the house. You'll get there eventually._

She exited the room and approached a corridor at the other side of the platform. A single mahogany door goaded her from the hall's end, its taunting sheen reflecting the light of a single yellow lantern on a hook beside it. She hastened toward the door and pulled on the handle, but it wouldn't budge.

Her attention was drawn to the lantern at her side. The hook was part of a teeter-totter stand, which rested on a gingham-blanketed barrel. Directly opposite the lantern was another hook, devoid of a matching lantern. 

_Oh._

_Oh fuck._

Moving with panicked strides, Casey returned the way she had come and stood facing the downstairs door for at least a minute. _I can't believe I'm doing this. This is a bad fucking idea, Cooke. Just go back, pull the handle down, and slide through the door. If you need to, you can burn a hole through the wall to escape, just don't go back down those fucking stairs-_

She turned the doorknob and leaned forth.

Loud, raspy breathing arose from the pit at the foot of the stairs. Clutching the handgun nearly to the point of misfiring, she inched down the stairs, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of its bottom.

The welling sludge had subsided, and the lantern lay at the bottom, its golden light persisting. 

And an emaciated branch of an arm, at least two meters in length, reached out of a hole in the mud wall of the pit, grasping the lantern's handle and dragging it out of view.

Casey's heart thudded in her throat as her breathing shallowed. Tears started to form yet again as she realized that she must face a new deformed monster in a new unfamiliar abyss. Only this time, she was certain that her adversary had not retained her human shape, as terrifying as that already had been.

_For Kevin._

She turned around and began to descend the ladder, swearing she would commit to those two words no matter how hollow the mounting horrors left them. Upon reaching the bottom, she crouched and aimed the pistol into the hole.

Ahead was a round tunnel, occupied by a retreating spider. Except this spider was the size of a human and had the glow of a lantern light before it as it scuttled away. 

Casey followed, unable to think, hardly able to breathe, squishing through the mud as she tracked the spider. The cavern walls closed in around her, threatening to suffocate her completely until she reached what seemed to be, from the interior, a well. The cylindrical stone walls hosted a single wooden ladder, which she climbed into the dazzling moonlight above.

The constant climbing and crawling shot more pain up her left arm, which she stiffened in an effort to soothe it as she looked at the new building before her. She was unsure of what function it could possibly hold, and it didn't seem to be connected to the house she just left. However, the collapsed roof at one segment and the ivy-shrouded tunnel of stairs before her haunted her as she studied it.

Her handgun was slid back into her back pocket, and the flamethrower and shotgun were adjusted on her shoulders as she proceeded. _Now or never now or never now or never._

The stairs creaked with every step, and as she rounded the corner, a door lay wide open at the top of the next flight, a candle lighting the room inside. Not necessarily a room, she discovered, but just a small foyer with a hole crashed through the boards.

A hole from which a strained growl rasped up at her.

Casey fully replaced the shotgun with the flamethrower on her shoulder strap. She could handle the flames with one hand if she needed to, but she wanted the safety of the shotgun front and center to put Patricia out of her misery. Aiming as she gazed down into the hole, nothing glowered back at her, and she hopped down.

A hall with fluorescent lighting led her past a set of stairs to a door covered with loudly chirping yet thankfully regular-sized spiders. She quickly torched them and eased the rotten door open. A cabinet with a box of shotgun shells rested inside and, fearing the worst, she graciously collected them and crammed her entire supply of such into a single container that she tucked on her hip.

_The only way to go is up._

Casey tiptoed out of the room. Left, right, and no sign of anything, so she placed back the way she came before stopping at the foot of the stairs. A guttural throat clicking sounded from above, and her grip on the shotgun tightened as she pumped it.

_This is for that goddamn video tape, you evil hag._

If she had four hands, she would have gripped every weapon on her. At a painfully slow rate, she moved up the stairs, fully expecting danger to leap out at her at any second. 

And so it did, as about seven steps up, Patricia flew threw the boarded window, her spindly, unnaturally elongated arms flailing as her black eyes glared into Casey's soul. She shot the woman directly in the face, causing her to reel back enough that Casey could finish the climb.

She found herself in an open upstairs area with all manner of peepholes in the floor and ceiling. The choked clicking of her foe's throat sounded from overhead, and in the moonlight, she caught a glimpse of Patricia hissing down at her.

**_Bang!_ **

A shot to the throat, and the woman fell through the hole in the ceiling. However, she immediately regained her balance and turned toward Casey, revealing a gruesome sight the girl wished she hadn't seen.

A cone-shaped hive had swollen out from Patricia's groin and stomach, emulating a womb. After standing dumbfounded for a mere second, she fired into the outgrowth, which splintered before relacing itself together. 

Patricia swung her arms around, which barely missed Casey as she bashed the clawed fingers away with the butt of her rifle. Returning to proper stance, she fired once more into the hive, and the woman leapt into a hole in the ceiling.

Casey pulled four shells from her hip and loaded them in the chamber before jumping into a chasm at the end of the room. She could hear the pained moans of Patricia carry from every direction as she whipped her head around. A locked door sat in one corner of the fragmented room below, and she hurriedly unlocked it before darting into the hall by the stairs and turning her shotgun's aim to the door behind her.

Patricia staggered closely behind her, hive stomach still bared but adorned with a gaping bleeding hole. Casey whipped the flamethrower off her shoulder and scorched Patricia one-handed. As the woman crumpled to the ground, she received a gunshot through the lower back. She howled in pain, but Casey was forced to reel back as Patricia skittered over the wall to her left and through a narrow tunnel.

Casey returned to the large room that the upstairs area had overlooked and kept an eye on every piece of her surroundings. Chirping spiders and buzzing bugs drew her attention every which way, which only made her more paranoid about the slashing reach of the spider-shaped woman. 

**_Crash!_ **

One such arm shot through a boarded window to Casey's left, followed by a shout of "Gotcha!" erupting from Patricia's bleeding face. The girl screamed, leapt back, and took aim with the flamethrower. The blaze burst forth and enveloped the woman as she climbed through the window. For a minute, she writhed on the wall, gripping as tightly as she could, and Casey took several shots at the growth in her stomach as she backed into the hall door.

She was almost free when a flailed arm slashed across her chest.

The pain of the gashes lit every nerve over her ribcage on fire. She didn't feel anything pierce below the bone, but her shirt ripped and the wound made her chest start bleeding. Wincing with each agitating step, she staggered back through the door, kicking it shut in her wake. A bottle of ointment was hastily wrestled from a side pocket in her backpack, and its contents were immediately squeezed down her shirt onto the gushing holes.

The blood started to pale as it mixed with the ointment en route out of her body, but the ointment seemed to clog the slash marks enough that she wouldn't have to worry about it until she was finished with this fight. Casey sprinted up the stairs, with Patricia, having found an alternative path to her prey, scurrying closely behind her.

At the top of the stairs, Casey whipped around, coming face to face with the increasingly mangled woman. Once again, she torched her body, and when the woman stood up, she emptied the shotgun into her stomach. Soon after, Patricia hurled herself out of the landing window, and Casey took the new opportunity to reload both the shells and the canister. 

Backing out into the main room, she kept eyes in the back of her head for both her enemy and an abrupt descent into the room below. Mutant bugs bolted at her from a hive on the opposite wall, and she let the flamethrower loose on their home until it exploded.

Unfortunately, this distracted her too intently, and she as she turned back around, Patricia pinned her to the floor. 

"Now what do you think YOU'RE doing?!" the woman screamed in her face before sinking her teeth in Casey's shoulder. The girl shrieked as she fumbled for her pistol and, upon retrieving it from her nearly-pinned back pocket, fired it into Patricia's temple. Patricia reeled back just enough that Casey could plant a foot in her chest, and the latter scrambled to her feet before hopping down to the lower level.

_**Bang!** _

_One to the stomach._

**_Bang!_ **

_Another._

Patricia writhed, screaming choked threats as she fell to her knees on the ledge above. She arched her back and leaned before remaining completely still. Then, every inch of her body turned white and fell into dust.

Casey crept around the corner and up the stairs, heaving with sobs, pain, vomit, and whatever else struck her sympathetic nervous system's fancy. _She...she fucking DISINTEGRATED..._

Upon approaching the pile of fragments, she found that her eyes had not deceived her. And that, on top of the dust, the lantern she needed patiently awaited her.

Collecting the key to the secrets of the old house, she stumbled down the stairs, toward a glass door at the other end of the hall, and out onto the tranquil lawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think something's wrong with me, these gory fight scenes are kind of really fun to write.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After narrowly escaping Patricia, Casey finds herself in the presence of another family member---one she hadn't met yet, but that seems rather sinister and troubled...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God, y'all, lucky number 13! I'm especially excited for this one, hope you enjoy.

Without a moment's hesitation, Casey set off on a staggering sprint toward the trailer. An iron gate stood in her way, but with a brief heave, she pushed the sliding bolt away and nearly fell through as her vision blurred. She maintained her breakneck pace around the safe haven's back side, threw its door open, and let her legs give out on the clean, chilled floor of the trailer.

Everything from the neck down throbbed due to a combination of bite marks, deep scratches, and muscle cramps. She slowly shed all of her cargo onto the floor, unable to hold back the tears as she curled into a fetal position and allowed the misery to overtake her for a brief period.

_Don't make me stand up. Please, God, take me on the floor of this trailer. If Luke busts in, let him take me to wherever Kevin is so we can at least die together. Or if Jade comes back, I'll make her come with me...please..._

It was the first time she had prayed for death in nearly a decade. She had hit rock-bottom at the beginning of high school while living under her uncle's roof, seeing no escape from the monstrosities he inflicted on her daily and believing that anything could be better than that. And it was true, she discovered, as her outlook on life became more optimistic over time. She had him locked up for all of his abuse, she had made friends at college, she and Kevin fell in love...

But she hadn't thought about how it could be worse. _This is SO much worse._

After five minutes, the dehydration her tears had wrought made every pain stab like flaming swords, and the thought of not alleviating the agony became even more unbearable than the prospect of descending deeper into hell. She slowly lifted her body off the floor, relieved by the cool air of the fan, and began to open drawers, scouring for any proper medicine.

All she could find was a headlamp, peroxide and medical tape, but without the anesthetic she had so hastily injected earlier, it would have to do. After biting back screams of pain as she rubbed the peroxide on her wounds with a washcloth, she wrapped everything that was open with the tape before approaching the fridge. She forcefully downed a soda, crossed to her backpack, and conducted a mental inventory.

_No more Patricia means no more bugs, so no more flamethrower...and the crank could probably stay here as well...I can use the lantern to light my way there...and I might need the headlamp after that._

After she stored the non-necessities in the hunting cooler, donning the lights, and retrieved her bag and guns from the floor, a violent shudder rocked her body. _Now to...now to get this fucking arm...Jesus..._

Lighter and more able to see than before, Casey leapt out of the trailer and jogged down the trail to the wooden bridge. The iron gate still remain open, and the plastic baby dolls still glared at her as she darted past. The bridge was still aloft over the chasm inside the house, and the light above the crow door was still on. _For once,_ she thought as she threw the door open, _nothing's CHANGING._

**_Bing!_ **

A soft, middle-range A-note from a piano echoed through the room, and Casey raised her shotgun. What sent her deeper into a panic was the realization that she had no idea who would play it at all. _Luke is hardly the subtle type, Jade would, or should, be welcoming me with open arms._

She crept closer to the side door, where Patricia's journal had sat on the chair by the piano, readied to aim, and jumped through.

_Nobody._

_Then who the hell..._

Casey placed one step back out into the hallway, turning her gaze both ways to ensure that she was alone for all intents and purposes. Nobody came into view, so she tiptoed down the harrowing hallway, lantern in hand as she eyeballed its rightful position on the scale. Moths fluttered around its match, and she gently lowered the lantern onto the hook.

**_Crank! Chnk-chnk-chnk-chnk-creeeeeeak, chnk-chnk clank!_ **

The elaborate door unlocked, but she hesitated before so much as opening it. Her deepest sense of fear screamed at her to turn around and leave, just as it had in the den, but all she could do was grip the shotgun tighter and ease the door open.

The room behind it was pitch black, so she clicked on the headlamp and pressed forth. It seemed to be a children's room, with its faded pastel floor and wall paper and a pair of shutters leaned up against the toy shelves. She rounded the shutters, and her headlight began to blink out before returning to normal. The darkness seemed to settle on her shoulders, robbing her of all ability to discern reality from sheer paranoia. _That Venn diagram's probably a circle...God, why is it so hard to BREATHE..._

**_WHAM!_ **

A heavy door slammed from beyond the next entryway, and Casey aimed the shotgun as she stepped forward. However, nobody emerged.

But a plastic ball did fly out from behind a shelf.

Her focus on blasting anything that moved to hell faltered for only a fraction of a second as the ball bounced off a torn couch and ticked as its plastic outer shell hit the laminated floor. The ball rolled into an alcove with a set of bay windows, where several sheets of paper lay scattered on the floor. One of which, upon first glance, lay blank excluding a name.

**Hedwig**

A morbid curiosity overtook Casey's senses as she turned the page over. The other side was a drawing of multiple black stick figures surrounding one large figure with curls around its head. What it was intended to symbolize was clarified by its hauntingly scribbled title.

**MY FAMILY**

She let the paper flutter out of her hands, swearing she could hear a distant humming but not clear enough to be sure it wasn't the wind. Her headlamp continued to flicker as she rounded the blocked, cluttered area from which the ball had been thrown.

As she entered a makeshift hallway, the peeling lavender wallpaper hosted another scribbled children's drawing. On this one, some sort of crescent shape had split in half, and black stick figures flew out of the wreckage from every which way.

_Is...that a boat?_

**_Creaaaaaaak..._ **

Casey's aim and attention immediately flipped to her right, where a rocking chair creaked as it carried its momentum back and forth, back and forth, with an earless teddy bear perched in its seat staring up at her. She kept her gun trained on the bear as the chair slowed, and the longer she looked at it, the more demonic its glare grew and the more sludge tendrils seeped from its stitched mouth.

She pushed the door just next to the chair open and sidewinded through, unwilling to take her eye off the bear. A proper hallway lay just beyond, with a singular wide-open door on the other side. When she attempted to direct her headlamp into its depths, all she saw was pitch blackness, even as she edged closer to it.

Finally earning a solid glimpse inside, she allowed a whimper to escape. The room was coated, floor to ceiling, with slime, and a prominent pillar met her near the entrance to the contaminated room. She planted one foot onto the solidified sludge, disgusted by the squishing noise it made and clutching the rifle in front of her. No monsters materialized from the blackened walls, and Casey continued onward, head pivoting every way possible to keep an eye out for any assailants. 

_**Thud! Thud!** _

Two half-melted baby dolls were hurled from behind the pillar, an area barricaded by haphazard armoires. Casey nearly fired a shot into one of the dolls' heads from being startled, and she glanced to the only route available to her. A door hung about three inches open, but seemed to drift shut as she approached.

_You're not losing your mind, but...how is this kid everywhere at once?_

Casey gave the door a gentle shove, allowing it to glide open as it revealed a hall barren of everything except a corroded silver rack. She proceeded toward it, doubting she would find any supplies, but her headlamp began to flicker again.

Except, this time, it faded out completely, plunging her into total darkness.

_I can't breathe, why does it feel like I have a hand around my throat, what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck-_

"Stay away."

Though Casey barely heard it, the voice was clear as a bell. A young boy, maybe nine at most, had listed out a stern threat. She couldn't discern the location of the source as the sound seemed to come from all sides.

However, her light slowly faded on, and Casey could breathe once again as she faced the tarnished rack. The corridor rounded a corner adorned by ugly bile-hued wallpaper, and Casey followed it around.

And was reunited with the ball that had been thrown across the first room, positioned in the exact center of the hallway.

And at the end of the hallway, a rusted iron door, reminiscent of an asylum, daunted her from afar.

Sneaking around the ball, Casey approached the door before her and reluctantly placed a hand on its knob. The door exuded glacial cold, but this was the only way forward, and she forced it to open.

A sunken toddler-sized bed with a tall headboard sat in the middle of the room, its linens torn and stained, its mattress caved in. The only other furniture was a wooden nightstand in the back right corner with a regal dollhouse overlooking the room from atop this mantle.

Casey noticed the hinges on the dollhouse's front, laid her fingertips on the top of its attic A-frame, and cautiously guided it open. A small notecard sat inside, with only a hasty crayon drawing on it. A big rectangle, a smaller one inside, a separate one branching off from the bottom, and an oval on the opposite side from the third.

_Wait...if that's the hallway..._

Casey directed her attention to the lowest segment of the wall behind the decrepit bed and was astonished to see that a four-foot square of wallpaper had peeled out from small gashes in the wall. Allowing the card to drift to the floor, she steeled her nerves, crouched, and inched toward the small, distinctive block.

Merely touching it caused the piece to squeak open on a hinge, and the tiny door swung open. Inside, a passage, decorated with small, contained candles, was punctuated by the corpse of a toddler, wearing a Mardi Gras headdress, resting on a throne. Voodoo dolls hung from nooses on the ceiling, which was now high enough to stand under. Last but certainly not least, a white bandage was wrapped around the corpse's outstretched arm, and a messy **G** was scrawled on it.

As Casey reached for the arm, she gagged in a valiant attempt to keep herself from vomiting. Bones and skin crackled as she pulled the arm, feeling as dead as it looked, from its socket and glancing down at it with disgust plastered on her face.

"Jesus...this MUST be it..."

As putrid bodily fluids began to leak from the socket, Casey carefully laid the arm in the largest pocket of her backpack. She merely needed to leave this building and meet with Jade at the trailer, and a smile barely blossomed through the permanent gloom of her countenance.

Which was immediately replaced with fear as she saw a pair of children's legs, clothed in yellow sneakers, red socks, and blue sweatpants, sprint past the door to the shrine.

Casey crouched and nearly flung herself sideways into the dungeon-esque room, but no child awaited her. A red mural of an eye, which she hadn't noticed upon first entering, glowered at her as she sprinted across the room and threw the door open.

Only to be met by a sludge monster.

At breakneck speed, she hoisted up the shotgun and blew the creature's head off before bolting past its twitching body. Her ears rang and her vision darkened from the sudden change of pace in such a disorienting part of the house, but she jostled her head and forced her senses to return, not wishing to figure out what would happen if they didn't.

Through the hallway. Past the pillar of slime, from which a monster lunged at her as she beat it away with the butt of the shotgun. She could hear the snarls of a mounting force of creatures in pursuit as she ran, but the warm glow of the upstairs common area was in full view, and she burst out whilst slamming the door behind her. 

Her feet, fueled by adrenaline, carried her toward the crow door with minds of their own. It was no wonder, then, when the phone by the door rang and Casey screamed in shock before clapping a hand over her mouth. She ripped the receiver off the hook and yanked it up to her face.

_"Did you find it?"_

Casey took a deep breath as Jade spoke, hoping to hide her trembling inflection. "Yeah." A pause. "Are you sure you'll be able to make a serum with this thing?" 

_"It'll be fine."_ A parallel pause. _"After we make it, we'll be able to get out of here-"_ Her voice quickly gained a cautiously optimistic tone.

_"-together. I'll be waiting for you in the trailer."_

**_Beeeeeeeeeeeeep_ **

Much calmer than before, Casey replaced the phone on the hook, readjusted all of her straps, and ran. Her greatest hope at escape patiently awaited her, and they still had medicine to mix and Kevin to rescue.

That is, she thought so, until the trailer door revealed the same trailer as before with no Jade inside.

Steam poured out of Casey's ears. _Of course this was bullshit. Of course she'd get the fuck out of dodge after all these sweet little promises. Why the fuck should I expect anything different at this point?_

**_Ringringringringringringring!_ **

She threw her backpack and shotgun on the floor as she stomped to the phone and nearly ripped the receiver out once again. 

"Now where the hell are you?!" Casey demanded, the stone wall of rage cracking from the sobs that threatened her composure. "You know what? Never mind. We only need the head and YOU have it. And this WILL help Kevin and me, ri-"

_"Hey there, chicky pie!"_

An accent, too thick, brash and deep to be Jade's erupted from the phone in jovial giggles, and Casey's heart sunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally wrote this at 2AM with my flashlight on my phone turned on. I hope you're as scared as I was...


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke now holds everything Casey needs to make a great escape. Unfortunately for her, he enjoys drawing out the process of tormenting the family's victims...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, DO NOT READ WHILE YOU ARE EATING.

Luke's gleeful taunting sat in juxtaposition with the spiral it started in Casey's mind. _He has both of them. He took Kevin right in front of me, and now he has Jade. What the fuck is he trying to do, oh my God, he's going to hurt them..._

 _"I thought you should know,"_ he sneered, the mockery in his voice almost as thick as his accent. _"I decided my little sister needed a time out! She and your boy toy are here with ME."_

Casey's panic deepened as she hysterically shouted into the phone, "Just let them both go! What do you need them for?!"

 _"Ah ah ah, that's family business, Casey! Not your concern, understand?"_ The sadistic man cleared his throat before evening his tone. 

_"Now, if you want this ol' head, feel free to come on by any time, I'll give it to ya! But! Only if you participate in a little...ACTIVITY I put together. Just for you."_

Her blood boiled at the ultimatum. "What activity?"

 _"Oh, I know you're excited, but don't worry. It's not going anywhere!"_ Childish giggles mingled with his words. _"First step I need you to take is to have a peek in the fridge inside that trailer there."_

"Fuck. You."

_"Oh, come on now, Casey, don't be like that! You wanna have some fun, don't ya? Now, look in the fridge!"_

**_Beeeeeeeeeeeeep._ **

Casey slammed the receiver down and leaned her head against the wall, the cold air circulating in her hideout barely dampening her desire to punch a hole straight through Luke's face. _I couldn't hurt him with my hands, anyway, considering he could wrestle Kevin away without issue...but that FUCKING MANIAC-_

_The fridge._

The memory of the man's jeers flooded back to her, and she directed a fearful gaze to the refrigerator. Her hand drifted up to the pistol in her back pocket and wrapped around its grip. She tiptoed painfully slowly to its relatively clandestine door and reached for the handle, preparing herself for whatever horror Luke had left for her. With barely enough courage to do so, she flung the door open and stepped back.

A human head sat on the top shelf, bloated, dark, and gorily sawed at the neck, not to mention the cavernous mouth full of sharp teeth erupting from the side. Casey pulled her shotgun off her shoulder and poked it near the eye with the barrel, but it didn't sprout any legs or continue its gruesome transformation. She returned her firearms to their original positions and leaned forward to reluctantly grab the horrifying decapitation.

The head seemed to belong to the deputy that had nearly arrested her earlier, but black tendrils had enveloped his face and the maw of a sludge monster erupted from where Dennis had scalped him. She saw that the tendrils extended all the way to the back of his neck.

Which was precisely where a scribbled note was tacked.

Casey ripped the note off of the decaying skin and let her shaking left hand drop the head to the floor. The blood-spattered, ripped corner of paper taunted her in its messy scrawl.

**The pig is waiting for you in the dissection room, bitch.**

Without missing a beat, Casey pivoted around, threw open the trailer door, and punted the head across the lawn. _That goddamn basement again. God fucking dammit...I don't know if I can go down there again..._

Nevertheless, she paced down onto the muddy lawn and mentally prepared herself for her newest descent into the depths of hell. The humid night air cinched her throat shut, but she needed to keep moving. 

Spotlights and bass-heavy music flooded from a third iron gate behind the trailer. Casey took the brief reprieve to creep over to it. _Locked. And hooked up to some weird car battery contraption._

_But of course._ _The only way to go is down._

She marched directly to the front door, eased it open, and did a once-over of the great hall. In her hour or more away from the familiar building, no monsters had taken up real estate there, and it remained unchanged. Striding to the scorpion door by the glow of the lamplight, still intermittently interrupted by the slow fanblades rotating on the table, she thrust it open and approached the basement steps.

Where the door, like the gaping jaw of a beast, invited her down into its darkened depths.

_You've already defeated worse, FAR worse. Eyes on the prize...whatever that is, exactly._

Hands wrapped around her readied shotgun, Casey inched down the stairs, following their fluorescent-lit funnel into a center devoid of light. She traced the familiar route to the room full of tubs. Her only companions were the stomps of her feet through the black slime and the heaves of her breathing. The dim light shone from behind the thick black pillar, and as she rounded both this and the corner of the wall she was met by the familiar sound of the generator.

And the familiar face of Grandpa, staring at her from his wheelchair beyond the door to the generator room.

"What the fuck?" She didn't mean to blurt it out, especially not at such a noticeable volume, but that was neither here nor there. A half-dead old man in a wheelchair had somehow been transported down multiple long flights of stairs into a dank basement infested with what was, in the best-case scenario, toxic black mold? _Luke wouldn't even be THAT crazy_.

_And there would be no point to bring him down here anyway._

Casey raised the shotgun, keeping the barrel trained on the old man's head, ready to fire at the first sign of movement. Every step toward him felt like an hour in itself, but as she circled around his chair with her back to the generators, he didn't budge an inch.

Her ears started ringing and she felt a familiar cloud of panic fall on her shoulders. The longer she stared at the old man, the more her senses seemed to distort, and she couldn't bear the disorientation. She returned her rifle to an at ease position, whipped her body around, and ran to the dissection room door.

All lights in the split area had been turned off but one small emergency lamp by the platform door, which revealed no cop strapped to the ceiling. Casey rounded the corner and continued down the stairs, eventually finding herself facing the long tunnel that would direct her toward the arena.

**_CRASH!_ **

A creature pounced out of the concrete wall at breakneck speed and started to scurry toward her. Casey immediately fired two shots, one into the head and one into its neck, before the former exploded and its grimy body collapsed three feet before her. She gingerly stepped over the body and around the next corner, which revealed the rusty double doors to be wide open.

Nothing else dared to startle her as she hastened up to the platform and glided the door open. _Most of them are too scared of the disgusting bastard that left this little surprise for me._ She intended for it to be a joke, but laughter was the last thing that came to mind when she was greeted by the deputy's corpse on the other side.

His body lay on a surgical table, appendages stiff from the quick onset of rigor mortis and a bloody stub occupying the space where his head should be. A sickening stench emanated from him, indicating that he had begun to rot. A square of cardboard with words written in marker was perched by his barren neck, and she crept toward it.

**Prove your worth.**

**Stick your hand down the pig's throat.**

_What the FUCK?_

Casey glanced down at the neck, which she realized had been stretched out just enough to fit a forearm, and immediately started to dry heave. _There's no FUCKING way I'm...I'm..._

_But the head might-_

_Abso-fucking-lutely NOT._

_I'm not going to prolong this shit, God knows what that crazy asshole is doing to Kevin if he's making me do THIS._

Bit by bit, Casey raised her right hand to the entrance of the deputy's neck. Every muscle in her arm twitched in a futile effort to restrain her as she stared bug-eyed at the opposite wall, desperate to distract herself from the reality of what she was about to do.

And then, she slid her hand in, with the spine as her guide for a straight shot.

Attempting not to vomit, she slid her arm past muscle, fat, and blood up to the crook of her elbow. It was then that she felt something distinctly metallic at the tip of her fingers. She wriggled them through the putrid flesh for a few seconds before fully grasping the object, and made quick work of yanking her arm back out.

Through watering eyes, she glimpsed the object she had pulled out and saw that it was a key, similarly shaped to the crow one in her pocket but with an adorning snake wrapped around its post. She shoved it in her other front pocket and stumbled into the back corner of the room to regain her bearings after the gruesome retrieval.

**_Crackle-crck..._ **

A public address radio came to life from somewhere in the room, with Luke's drawl taunting her from beyond.

_"That pretty little thing will help you find the two keycards you're gonna need to join the party we're having over here! You've gotta EARN your way, Casey!"_

Casey glowered at the ceiling and stuck her middle finger up, hoping Luke had just enough surveillance in that room to see the impassioned, albeit useless, gesture. Pushing herself off the wall, she stalked back out the door to the platform.

_The snake door!_

The image of the door with the snake wreath from a room elsewhere in the basement came to mind immediately, and she recalled that she hadn't explored the small hall past where Dennis had stranded her in the arena. Hearing snarls boil from the walls around her, she bolted past the edge of the platform and around a corner, which revealed a flight of stairs with a snake door at the end.

The key slipped in her bloody hand, and she could hear the growling edge closer to her. Finally, she managed to jam the key in the lock, crank it open, and slide through the door. A monster reached out to swipe its claws at her, but she slammed the door shut just in time, and its hand crunched in the door frame.

She sprinted through the large room that resided exactly where she had remembered it, encountering only one creature crawling toward her. She blasted its head off, found her way back to the main door, and kicked it open to hustle up the stairs.

Once at the top, she took a few deep breaths to calm her hyperventilation and ease her pounding headache as the rotten smell of the deputy's decomposing body lingered in her nostrils.

_Party. Must be referring to whatever torture chamber he's set up with the lights and music behind the trailer._

_And you'll be ready. Because you have the crow key._

Another memory came to her, the sight of a homemade grenade rifle resting on a stack of boxes in the den. Kept away from her by a crow door. At the junction that would have led her to the great hall, she opted to turn left, taking her back to the quiet, clean den.

No creatures sprang forth in the black room, and when she finally passed the polished sofas of the den, the door that she remembered was present. Retrieving the other key from her pocket, she cranked the door unlocked and forced it open.

_Gotcha._

The new weapon and a bag of flame rounds lay on the tarp-clothed crates, and she detached her shotgun from her shoulder strap to make room for the heavier firepower. The pouch was promptly tied to the waist of her jeans, opposite from the box of shotgun shells compressed in her waistband, and she smirked.

_That jackass is going to regret everything._

With light feet and heavy inventory, she returned to the great hall and strode out through the scorpion-dressed door. The all-too-common growl resounded from the staircase and the projector room, and Casey immediately took aim at one that staggered toward her from the latter.

_**Bang!** _

_Head gone._

**_Bang!_ **

Another one, from upstairs. _God, did this slime spread up there, too?_

Casey opted to steer clear of the side she had explored earlier and turned to run up the opposite set of stairs. Luckily, a snake door goaded her from the top, and she pulled out her key to open it.

_**Ker-chunk! C-c-c-clink! Creeeeeak...** _

Casey guided the door open to find a master bedroom, which was, like the den, surprisingly well-kept. A desk lamp perched on a vanity lit her view of the room, and she began to scour the shelves. Apart from more shotgun shells and a bottle of antibiotics, nothing caught her eye.

Not until she directed her attention toward the bed, where she noticed a golden glow illuminating a hole underneath. 

She dropped to the floor and stuck her arm underneath the bedframe, but she could barely move her skinny appendage under there, let alone fit her body through. Nonetheless, the secret passageway had presented itself to her, and she had an inkling that it could be concealing a keycard from her.

The nightstand quickly caught her eye. A small, decorative analog clock sat firmly stuck to the hardwood surface, and a notecard sat stuck to a makeup mirror behind it. She shuffled toward the nightstand and lifted the note.

**Same time as all the other clocks.**

Casey glanced down at the clock and realized that it was set to midnight despite the fact that her smartwatch read at about half an hour later.

_Wait, 12:30 isn't right...when I got the one crest, the clock in the living room chimed ten times, and that was at MOST two hours ago...wait..._

She crouched down, reached behind the clock, and started to wind its hands backward. She passed the eleventh-hour mark in no time, finally letting the hands rest at exactly ten o'clock.

**_Riiiiiiiiiiiiing!_ **

The grating chime of the alarm sounded, and the bed slid away from her, baring the passage she desired. Casey swung herself around to it and gently lowered her body down the steep wall, prepared to continue her mandatory search for the key cards that would reunite her with Kevin and Jade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter might be a lot longer, but it's also one of my favorites. Can't wait!


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey is forced to track down a pair of keycards before setting off in search of Luke. However, this buys her time to learn about her enemy before rushing into danger.

Casey gazed down the newly-built stairs in tunnel beneath the bedroom, lit by alternating wall lamps. She wanted to turn back and do another investigation of the room's supplies, but the four-poster bed creaked and groaned as it started to shift back into place over the hole she now stood in. Swiftly crouching, she allowed the furniture to glide over her and lock her into this suspiciously tidy stairwell.

_At least I know this keycard has to be down here._

She shuffled forward to the first few steps and cautiously straightened her spine as she descended into the new region of the house. She held her shotgun in front of her chest, awaiting an inevitable attack from any angle, but it never came. One flight of stairs became two, and then three, and the knowledge that she was now on the same level as the basement was tinged with terror courtesy of the cramped space around her.

The tail end of the hallway held a pitch-black doorway on her left, and Casey lifted a gilded tray with a candle from a hook on its frame before entering. Though the light flickered as its flame danced back and forth, she could still make out a gruesome sight reminiscent of her first red flag from that afternoon.

A wreath of animal legs was strung up from the top and sides to the ceiling, and sawblades were hung everywhere by ropes. Half-dissected carcasses lay on three different tables. The smell of rotting flesh scorched her eyes, but she dared to neither vomit nor cry for fear of dehydration. _If I lose water, the stench will be enough to knock me out._

A slight glint caught her eye from one of the tables, and, burying her face into the collar of her turgid shirt, she crept toward it. On the table, a processor the size of a credit card with a red strip on the end drew her gaze. Carefully lifting the first of the two keycards she needed, Casey reached around and slid it into thre smallest pocket of her backpack.

The odor started to border on disorienting, and she had to get out of there immediately. A vault-like door resided opposite the passage she had entered through. After another deep breath into her shirt and a drop of the shoulders, she strode up to it and unlocked it.

Casey found herself once again in the room near the original snake door, and she had snarling company from around the hallway corner. She bolted forth and squared up, blasting two consecutive shots through the heads of two sludge monsters before dropping the candles and reloading her shotgun. The lights snuffed out, and without delay, she hastened to the basement's primary door and hurried up the steps, through the scorpion door, into the great hall...

_Jesus Christ, how many times have I had to go into that godforsaken hellhole?_

With nowhere else left to take the gorily gifted snake key, Casey opted to enter the halls opposite the master bedroom and scour for any doors she had missed. Her sustained run carried her up the grand staircase, to the door...

_Oh._

_Oh my God._

The black sludge had spread its bulky tendrils into a pillar on the wall facing her and over most of the surfaces surrounding her. As it oozed, the extensions seemed to widen, and she raised her gun again in anticipation for the enemies that would follow in its wake. Having explored the veranda, she shuffled to her left, guided by only moonlight as the mold had enveloped the lamps that glowed in the hallway just a few hours before.

A white door with a far-too-familiar snake wreath in its center was framed by the black grime halfway between the initial junction and the billiard room door, and promptly jammed the necessary key into its elaborate lock. Cranking it open, she finally gained access and leaned into the room behind it.

A child's bedroom awaited her entry. Though dingy, it felt comparatively human, and Casey wondered if Luke's little game had anything to do with that. An antique vanity with a shattered mirror resided on the right-hand wall, donned only with a few sheets of yellowing notebook paper. She silently stepped toward them and lifted the stack to read them.

**April 20th**

**Oliver's stopped his yelling, but sometimes I hear knocking from above.**

**May 2nd**

**It REALLY stinks! Some weird juice is dripping from the ceiling.**

**Since I had time, I changed the remote control trophy again. Now it'll be shiny even at night!**

A shudder raced up Casey's spine. Kevin, Jade, and her means for escape were all in the hands of a bonafide psychopath, and every second spent stumbling around in search of these keycards was another opportunity for him to commit unspeakable horrors.

_Lord knows he had the balls to do it even before his family went batshit._

_Okay, focus, trophy. He said trophy, does that mean..._

She pivoted and found a wooden shelf mounted the the peeling green wall with an array of awards laid on its dusty surface. After crossing the room, she began to examine them for any clues or buttons.

_Amateur Robotics Honorable Mention, nope...Junior Engineering Runner Up, nothing..._

No results, and she began to examine the cabinets on the back wall for any other hidden remotes, still nothing, and she huffed, irritated by the sly puzzle.

Until she saw a lamp sandwiched between some cardboard boxes in the middle of the room, its base formed of four gleaming golden pillars.

_Now it'll be shiny even at night._

Casey reached down and lifted the lamp, rotating it to find every angle under the shade. After twisting her view, a prominent red button was located next to the switch, and she pressed it.

_**Clunk-clickclickclickclickclickclick-WHAM!** _

A ladder attached to a rolling track dropped down to the floor from an opening in the ceiling above a corner concealed by the dilapidated vanity and a china cabinet. Though the ladder appeared quite rickety, she hurried up to it and began to climb, knowing that her adversary would hide this card as best as possible.

The upper level greeted her with an open armoire, with nothing but a single VCR tape resting on its shelves. She lifted the tape and examined the label, chilled by its uncharacteristically cheery title.

**Happy Birthday**

_I'll have to watch it in the trailer,_ she noted before leaning down, shoving it in her backpack, and pressing forth into the attic's recesses. A tin shelf rack held its post beneath a wall lamp, but all it housed was a set of wooden toy weapons. As she rotated herself to face the very back, however, a much more promising prize caught her eye.

A shadow projector was set up in the center of the room, with its landscape wired to a dollhouse in the corner. Better yet, the necessary statuette was already present. 

Casey rotated the abstract object in its place, attempting to align it with the haunting silhouette of an executioner. When the shadow finally struck its mark, bumps raised through the canvas, and the front of the dollhouse swung open.

And a keycard, identical to the prior one save for the blue identification strip, was perched in its center room.

She confidently step toward it, grasped the item, and wrapped it with the red card inside of one of the old, wrinkled maps in her backpack. Making a swift exit, she hustled down the ladder as gently as she could and jogged out of the door and down to the large house's front entrance, silently praying that she was finally done with this neverending wellspring of horrors.

Her high hopes almost distracted her from the sound of scurrying over the lawn.

Choosing to save some of her shotgun shells for Luke's face, she whipped the pistol from her back pocket and aimed at the head of an approaching figure as it shuffled across the lawn on all fours.

_**Bang!** _

The screech of a damned soul exploded from the slime creature, and she made two more shots before its head exploded and the body collapsed into the mud. She then pressed onward, lured by the blinding lights and heavy bass of the supposed party that Luke had planned for her and her trapped companions.

_Wait! The tape!_

Suddenly recalling the fascinating find from the attic, Casey veered toward the trailer and graciously stepped into the bubble of cool air inside. As hungry as she was,, the thought of eating anything that had sat in the same fridge as the deputy's deformed head made her stomach churn, so she retrieved the tape, pushed it into the VCR, and eased her aching body onto the chair.

_A terrified man, most likely with a field camera strapped to his hat, panted out protests as Luke dragged him toward a grated door. The former's hands were tied, and the latter had a gleam of pure mischief in his eyes as he jeered at the powerless man before him._

_"You, my friend, are one lucky son of a bitch!" Luke turned around to punch a code into a keypad wired to the entryway ahead of him before he continued his backhanded compliments. "You know, I actually envy you."_

_Though the faceless man's shouts never rose above breathless pants, he still squirmed as Luke threw the door open and turned around. "What, you don't believe me?!" he inquired of his victim emphatically. "This joy...you can't fake this!"_

_He grabbed the man by the ankles and hurriedly dragged him into the darkness of the room before continuing his self-aggrandizement. "It has taken me WEEKS to finish this, and it's finally ready! And it's all for you!"_

_Luke pulled a pair of clippers from his back pocket and snipped the ties around the man's wrists, but he did nothing to fight back against his captor as the maniac chided him for his protests._

_"This is going to be fun. Just you wait."_

_And with that, Luke sprang to his feet and paced directly out the grated door, slamming and locking it as he departed. The man gingerly rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up on trembling arms, but his exhaustion rendered him incapable of keeping up with his adversary, and he could only stand and stare outside this mysterious cell._

_There was no chance of escape, and he turned around as he uttered a dejected sigh. The only source of light in the room was a candle gripped by a haunting animatronic clown that gazed morosely at a table with black scribbles on its surface. He lifted the candle from its holder and began to proceed deeper into the chamber, passing a kitchen and approaching a doorframe._

**_Fwssshhhhhh!_ **

_Water gushed out from a pipe in the ceiling of the miniature hallway he passed through, and all of the fluorescent lights flipped on at once. The opposite wall of the large room he found himself in held only a large cake, and the wall at his far right had a wine barrel with a wind-up stopper in its front._

_"I'm calling the game 'I'd really like to make it out of this room alive and not die a horribly painful death,'" Luke's voice crackled from a PA the owner of the camera couldn't seem to locate. "I know. It's a temp title."_

_"Take the candle, light it, and put it on the cake. And remember to smile! This part's for YOU, ol' Fletcher!"_

_"Fuck you!" the cameraman shouted, his voice trembling as he took notice of the locked box on the wall by the entryway and approached the barrel. He twisted the windup key out of its front, and while he gathered the new object, a stream of dark liquid poured out onto the floor._

_Exiting the room triggered the pipes to douse Fletcher again, and he staggered out to the main room where the clown awaited him patiently from his chair. The light of a small room behind the robot caught his attention, however, and he redirected his course to the alcove._

_The only prominent feature was a toilet, but inside a pool of excrement-tainted water had risen to the rim of the bowl. Something bobbed within the disgusting mixture, and Fletcher dry heaved as he reached for it._

_When he finally pulled his hand out of the water, he held a small telescope smeared on every surface with feces, and he at first dropped it to the floor and held himself tight to the door frame. Eventually, however, he reached down to reclaim the discovery and paced back through the kitchen._

_Fletcher held the telescope under the water gushing from the pipes to soak the disgusting coating off of the tool. Once most of it cleared off, he reluctantly brought it to his face and started to whip his gaze around with it over his eye._

_That was when, after gazing at a set of screens depicting a family portrait for some time, he let his arm fall to his side and retreated to the room with the cake._

_He strode up to the box on the wall and directed the camera at the lock, which, instead of numbers on each slider, had small doodles. Fumbling with the mechanisms, he finally set each part of the code to whatever pictures he must have seen in the larger image._

_Hangman, gravestone, fetus._

_The lick snapped open and clattered to the floor, and Fletcher opened the box's door to reveal a small voodoo doll on a stick. A wick poked out of its burlap head, and he wrapped his fingers around the provided handle to retrieve the disturbing object._

_With haste, he ambled out to the kitchen and turned the knob for the burner. Though it sparked for quite a long time, the small flames eventually caught, and an orange fire burst forth. He lowered the doll's wick into the ember, and as it burned, a plastic cone revealed itself beneath the burlap. It resembled, upon closer examination, a plastic finger, which he shoved into his pocket before walking toward the portrait._

_A door sat to the elaborate piece's right, its knob tied to the frame with a thick rope. Fletcher rotated back and approached the stove once again, this time holding the candle up to the blaze. Once sufficiently lit, he returned to the door and held the flickering flame up to the rope, causing it to catch fire and scorch through the middle._

_The next room was littered with gray balloons and curved around to a door on the same wall at the opposite end. A combination lock, this one requiring five letters, barred his entry, and he spun around to return to the main room._

_That is, until he saw the deflated green balloon laying on a countertop._

_Fletcher lifted the balloon by its neck and proceeded to this strange dungeon's common area. He glanced around, revealing a grate that showed a crank in the room he had just attempted to access and a hose spraying some kind of gas. He lifted the balloon to his face for further examination, wrapped it over the nozzle, and stared at it as it inflated._

_Already, the spikes poking against the industrial-grade material caused him to step back. However, when it burst, it still sent rusty nails flying out one of which landed in the meaty part of his hand that he had used to block the point from piercing his eye._

_This splitting pain seemed to have nothing, though, on the quill pen driven into his abdomen, which caused him to vocally cry out as he slid it out of his wound._

_The tip of the pen was coated with his blood, and Fletcher stopped to think and pull the nail from his palm before rushing out to the animatronic clown. He popped the plastic finger into a barren socket and crammed the quill between the robot's fingers. Finally, he positioned the windup key into the clown's chest and started to twist._

_Which suddenly changed into the clown grabbing his hand and shaking as it prepared its motions._

_"What the fuck is this?" Fletcher rasped out, early signs of panic taking root in his already weak voice. "What are you doing?"_

_His protests grew into shouted commands to stop, and eventually screams, as the clown raised its writing hand and began to tattoo a word onto his forearm. His breaths remained shallow as he staggered back, and he raised his arm to examine the carnage._

**_LOSER_ **

_Fletcher sprinted back to the door to the balloon room and shuffled through the balloons to reach the lock, which currently spelled **HAPPY.** He slowly spun each wheel in the lock until it clicked on the right letters. The lock slid open, and he thrust forth through the door to retrieve the valve crank._

_The leaking pipes doused his candle once more as he jogged to the cake room, but it would be the last time. He positioned the crank over a loose nozzle in the pipes on the wall and tightened the flow of the water. As he stepped back out into the kitchen, no water rained down on him from the ceiling, and he approached the stovetop burner with fearful concentration._

_The wick on the candle caught fire, and every other light in the chamber shut off. A slowed rendition of "Happy Birthday" emanated from the cake room, and Fletcher inched toward it, clearly fearing whatever came next. He firmly planted the candle in the cake, breaths swallowing as he waited for something to happen._

**_BANG!_ **

_The cake exploded and erupted into a column of fire, throwing Fletcher back into a wall that Luke must have moved over the room's exit. The camera's view darted everywhere, catching the gleam of the liquid that had spilled out from the barrel coating the floor._

_Then, the flame spread everywhere, including to Fletcher's skin and clothing._

_He tried to pay himself out, to no avail, and climbed to his feet. There was no exit by the wall with the barrel, and his entrance had been barricaded. Consumed by mania, he zigzagged through the burning room, flames bursting out of the floor at every step, screaming for help._ _Winding up at the valve crank again, he tried to turn it, but it broke off of the pipes entirely, and his charring hands dropped it to the floor._

_Finally, he collapsed, shrieks of agony carrying him into whatever came next for this unknown man._

_The video skipped to a point much later, when the fire had subsided but his flesh still burned. Luke had snuck into the room and spotted the camera. He tiptoed toward it and kneeled down to retrieve his new toy, delivering one hauntingly gleeful taunt before the recording ended._

_"Happy birthday!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBH I loved writing this one! I love this part of the story because Luke is demented as all hell and his characterization is so sinister and fascinating. Expect more excitement to come!

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to comment and leave kudos! Also, I started this on Tumblr (thegremlinofransei) a year ago, but damned if I won't finish it during my three-week quarantine!


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